


Strike Me Down; I Am Unarmed

by soulshrapnel



Series: oh my god they were co-emperors [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Aftereffects of Abuse, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BDSM, Emperor Tarkin, Emperor Vader, Exegol, Moral injury, Multi, PTSD, Please Do Not Try To Rule The Galaxy With Darth Vader, Polyamory, Polyamory Done Badly, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Power Imbalance, Sith ghosts, Space Fascist Disaster Boys, Suicidal Thoughts, and one (1) disaster girl, author is working through some stuff, awkward murder road trip with your awkward murder metamour, cherrypicking from both Legends and the sequels and changing their details to suit me, everybody is super dysfunctional, like really a lot of angst, not exactly a redemption arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 117,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel
Summary: Vader and Tarkin are lovers, and they've make a secret pact: overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy themselves.But killing Palpatine was the easy part. Now something unnameable is haunting Vader's dreams, dark enough to frighten even him. An old flame of Tarkin's has returned from exile, and she's seen hints of a Dark Side project so secret, even Vader doesn't know its name. To truly dismantle Darth Sidious' legacy will take more than a single coup - more than either of the nascent emperors ever imagined.
Relationships: Natasi Daala/Wilhuff Tarkin, Wilhuff Tarkin/Darth Vader
Series: oh my god they were co-emperors [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845532
Comments: 225
Kudos: 109





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I Will Not Let My Body Belong To The Dead](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555879) by [soulshrapnel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel). 



> This is an AU continuation of ["Playing With Fire."](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1307006) It is **not** part of the series proper and is in many ways a different kind of story. If I'm doing this properly then it should still make sense even to newcomers who have no interest in that series. (Though if you are interested in reading both, I would recommend starting with "Playing With Fire" for best effect.)
> 
> If you're coming to this continuity for the first time, here's what you need to know:
> 
>   * Vader and Tarkin have been in a relationship for a while! It's very kinky and a bit dysfunctional but also very devoted. By this point in the story, they've gotten serious about it.
>   * You know Palpatine's awful, right? Palpatine's awful. Hopefully we're on the same page about this.
>   * "Playing With Fire" is entirely movie-canon-compliant, and cuts out just before the beginning of "Rogue One." This story picks up not long after an alternate "A New Hope," which you can assume is exactly the same as the canon movie except that Tarkin got onto his shuttle at the last minute and survived.
>   * Tarkin's relationships/family from Legends also exist, but in modified form. For instance, he and Thalassa Motti have been divorced for a while.
> 

> 
> Everything else will _hopefully_ be explained at a good pace as we go.
> 
> For **content warnings** please check the tags. This won't be full of smut the way "Playing With Fire" was, but it's going to be a fic that goes to some heavy places at times. I hope you like Darth Vader-sized angsty trashfires, 'cause this is one.

It had been two full weeks since Darth Vader murdered his master, and he was beginning to feel awake again.

He floated in the privacy of his bacta tank, looking blearily at the room around him. His quarters on Mustafar looked the same as ever, which was comforting in one way and unsettling in another. It was a black room, dimly lit, poorly furnished except for a bench and padded table at the side and some shelves of medical equipment. And the tank, of course, in pride of place on its dais, where he was now awake.

One thing had changed: the Royal Guards, in their scarlet masks and cloaks, no longer stood by his side. That was good. Their loyalty had been to Palpatine, and Vader had never liked them. Even naked and limbless and half-awake, he could still defend himself without assistance.

He hadn't been asleep the full two weeks, of course. He'd fallen unconscious after the fight, his life-support circuits fried by Force lightning and three of his prosthetic limbs torn through, along with bad wounds in some of the parts of him that were actually alive. He'd have died of those injuries if not for Tarkin, who'd been in on this plan from its beginning, and who'd been waiting as close by as he dared with a float pallet and a team of med techs, ready to rush him back to the _Executor._

Vader didn't remember that part. Only the fight itself, and the way he'd fought to stay conscious just long enough to be sure that Palpatine was truly dead. He'd felt it in the Force, that death, one of the most overwhelming things he'd ever felt. Palpatine's spirit had been so closely connected to Vader's, and it had felt as if every particle of that spirit was screaming, clawing at the body it had inhabited, desperate to stay alive and whole. But Vader knew what to do about that. He'd known to go for the head, to mutilate the body into unrecognizability, to leave nothing intact large enough for a soul to inhabit even with the greatest rage-fueled will. He'd stayed awake long enough to do that, guiding his lightsaber with the Force when he no longer had hands to wield it, and to feel the last gasp of despair as the spirit left the body for good. Then, darkness.

Now he was back home and vaguely awake, which meant Tarkin's part of the plan had worked, too.

That, or he'd dreamed it all.

The Royal Guards were gone, though, which was a good sign. Vader reached out with his feelings gingerly, as if they too were limbs that could be overtired. He could not feel any Royal Guards, but he felt his house servants, lounging around doing nothing much in the servants' quarters. There was an air of strained uncertainty around the servants, the kind that often appeared when there was some shift in the fortress's routine. He couldn't feel his droids, droids weren't really feelable in the Force, but he assumed they were there. He could feel the lava flowing under the building's foundations, the smoky sky and the hungry vacuum above, and these were comforting.

He wondered what time it was.

He remembered drifting in and out of consciousness. The shape of his quarters, refracted slightly through the bacta, blurrily appearing and disappearing. Pain; he remembered that. Vader had the kind of chronic pain throughout his body that was never fully gone. At the moment it felt worse than usual, but not catastrophically so. He'd be fine as long as he didn't move much.

He remembered something else, too, though the details eluded him. A bad dream, or something like a dream, in the fog between sleeping and waking. A cold and hungry presence pressing into him from all sides. He'd told it _no, no, no,_ again and again. The _no_ had stopped it from swallowing him completely, but nothing could make it draw back. He'd known, in the horror of his dream state, that it would never go away.

But it wasn't here now. He was awake, and there was no presence like that anywhere around him. It must have only been a dream.

He floated for a minute or two, listening to the rhythm of the air through his breath mask, getting his bearings. Before long, through the small bacta-resistant headphone he wore in his tank, he heard a familiar voice.

"Good morning, Lord Vader. Or afternoon, really. Looks like you're fully conscious for a change. How are you feeling?"

This was M4-R3K, Vader's personal medical droid. He'd built her long ago to his own specifications, frustrated with the cruel and impersonal machines Palpatine provided, and with the suppressed disgust and horror of human attendants. M4 had an odd personality and could be overly familiar, but she took good care of him. It was more of a relief than he'd expected, hearing her voice.

"Do you call this 'fully conscious?'" he grumbled, knowing his mask would pick up his weak voice and transmit it to her. He was still groggy, and he felt only half-present. Another half of him was somewhere else. Still asleep, maybe. Still making its way back from the throne room on Coruscant. There was some part of him still numbed to its circumstance, and it would return only with time.

"Eh, well, after what you've been through I'm not going to split hairs. You're dissociating more than I'd like you to be, but your brain's making reasonable numbers of alpha and beta waves again and that's a nice change. Do you want some news?"

"Yes," said Vader. M4 wasn't normally very interested in current events; like most droids, she was blinkered in her focus. If she offered him news immediately on waking, before even offering medicine or his suit, then it would not be mere chit-chat. It would be something vital to his interests.

"Well, first of all, Lord Sidious is officially dead. They had a state funeral and everything. I'm guessing you remember, uh, how he died, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little retrograde amnesia with injuries like yours, so I want to make sure. You remember, right?"

"I remember," said Vader. It had not been a dream, then. Unless this also was one. His mind still felt fuzzy.

"Great. So, everybody in the Empire is dealing with that. Governor Tarkin's been hard at work on Coruscant picking up the pieces. Or, er, Emperor Tarkin now, I guess you'd call him. Should I be calling you Emperor Vader? It doesn't quite roll off the tongue like 'Lord.' Not that I have a tongue, technically."

"'Lord Vader' will do," said Vader.

Technically Vader had not needed Tarkin's help to kill Palpatine. Vader had fought that last battle alone. But he had needed help to believe it was possible, and to pick the best moment to strike. To set it all up correctly, and to deal with the aftermath. Vader was unofficially Palpatine's heir, but Palpatine had never bothered teaching him the skills a good emperor needed. To survive without his master, he'd have to outthink the opponents who weren't cowed by his presence, command high officials' loyalty and rule well. Vader didn't have those abilities. But Tarkin did. And Tarkin, in these past few years, had grown to care enough for Vader to join him in treason.

So, under cover of their close relationship, Vader and Tarkin had hatched a plan. Vader's violent power and his uncanny perception; Tarkin's deviousness with people and his ruthless plans. Neither of them were a match for Palpatine individually, but together they were stronger. And that was how they would rule. Not emperor and consort, not master and apprentice, but co-emperors, equals, neither a slave to the other.

That was what Vader had wanted out of this, even more than he wanted to rule. He wanted not to have a master anymore. He wanted to be free.

He _was_ free, and the fullness of that truth hadn't quite sunk in yet.

"Okay," said M4, "so, everything's still pretty out of sorts, but Emperor Tarkin's-"

"Just call him 'Tarkin,'" said Vader impatiently. He'd told M4 not to call him Emperor, and he wasn't going to let someone else be called that word if he wasn't.

"Got it. So, Tarkin's dealing with all the inevitable different factions and issues that have popped up, and he's mostly on top of it, but he says it would be better if you were there to help. That is _not_ intended as any pressure, Lord Vader, I want to make that clear. You have been plenty heroic enough already and you have been very ill. But, the good news is that when you're ready to leave the tank, I've got your replacement arms and leg all set for you. And once that's all finished, you can think about joining Tarkin and helping him sort out the galaxy, okay?"

"How long will that take?" said Vader. Even exhausted and in as much pain as he was, Vader didn't want to wait and convalesce in his tank. If his help was needed, he wanted to _help._ Vader was familiar with the need to press onward and do what was necessary, even when his body screamed otherwise. It didn't even rankle him anymore.

"We-ell, Lord Vader, we should talk about that. When Lord Sidious was around, he decided this sort of thing for you, didn't he? When you were well enough for a mission, in his opinion, and when you should rest. But he's gone and good riddance, so now you're going to have to practice deciding that for yourself. I would recommend waiting several days at minimum; you're still very injured and with too much exertion right now you could make it worse. But the exact threshold, as far as timing goes, is really up to you."

"As you wish," said Vader vaguely. If it was up to him, he thought, he'd want to be out of the tank as soon as possible. Who wouldn't? He wanted to _do_ things. He had the whole galaxy in his hands now, and he wanted not to screw that up.

"Also," said M4, "on that note, Vaneé says Tarkin wants a holocall as soon as you're awake enough to have one. Should I let him know you're free?"

"Tell him," said Vader. He didn't understand the hesitance to clear him for a simple holocall. Vader never minded talking to Tarkin.

"Um," said M4, hesitating even further. "And... Should I get you in your suit for the call? Or do you want to use the transmitter in the tank?"

"The tank," said Vader.

M4 seemed dubious, but she knew better than to ask Vader the same question repeatedly. "Okay, Lord Vader. I'll go let him know."

Vader's bacta tank was heavily customized for his needs. One thing it contained was a transmitter for holocalls. The person on the other end would see him from the chest up, naked and hooked in to his various forms of life support. Only Palpatine had ever sent him holocalls that way before. With Palpatine it had been an intentional humiliation, a stripping away of Vader's boundaries. But Tarkin was different. Tarkin had seen him in his tank before without thinking any less of him. With Tarkin, after everything else that they'd been through together, it wouldn't even be embarrassing.

*

The call took a few minutes to go through; Tarkin had been in the middle of some meeting. But he managed to pull himself away soon enough. His image appeared, blue and translucent, floating close enough for Vader to focus on it through the bacta. He blinked at it, oddly overwhelmed.

Vader was used to seeing Tarkin in his Grand Moff's uniform, gray and strict. Since they'd become lovers, he'd seen him in other states of dress: stripped naked, or wrapped in his silver-gray bathrobe, or relaxing in civilian attire. But even out of uniform, Tarkin's tastes were quite plain. Seldom any more than a tailored tunic in some inoffensive color over black trousers. No jewelry, no gloves, no adornments, no fuss.

The image that greeted Vader now was altogether different.

It was certainly Tarkin; Vader would have known that sharp face anywhere, and he carried himself as he always had. But everything else about him had been transformed. He wore a flowing, multi-layered, calf-length robe, elaborately belted at the waist, and a half-cape over his shoulder long enough to dust the ground. The holo connection didn't show colors, but there was a subtle shimmer to the materials and a gradation between tones which suggested a complex play of color, from white at the collar through brighter, deeper shades, down to the reflective boots and the lower half of the cape, which were a midnight black like Vader's. Around his forehead he wore a simple circlet, shined to perfection, whose meaning was impossible to miss.

His expression softened at the sight of Vader. Affection, and something very much like relief. "Vader, you're awake."

"So I am told. I see you have obtained a new wardrobe." Vader allowed a hint of mischief to creep into his voice. "Emperor."

Tarkin glanced distractedly down at himself. "Do you like it? I don't. The cape reminds me of Krennic. But a military uniform isn't right for this work, and I refuse to start hobbling about in a shapeless black cloak." He looked at the back of his hand, which was bare; fashionable people on Coruscant wore gloves, but Tarkin never liked to. "I suspect the Imperial tailors will go through several variations before we're happy. It's not the Empire's most pressing issue, of course."

Vader would have laughed, if his lungs had been physically capable. " _I_ wear a cape. You could have selected one that reminds you of me."

"Matching capes, hm. That seems... twee." Tarkin looked into midair for a moment, distracted by the mental image, then refocused. "I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you recovering. You were in such poor shape, I worried you'd be dead before we reached the medbay."

They had both taken into account, in their plans, that something like this might happen. If Vader died then Tarkin was essentially on his own, but if he was temporarily out of the picture, then Tarkin would need to be able to invoke his authority while he wasn't present. They'd walked a fine line, planning how to shore up the picture of Tarkin as Vader's chosen co-heir without casting any suspicion on themselves in advance.

They both needed each other alive, now, for reasons more complex than love alone.

"How have you fared in my absence?" Vader asked. It couldn't have gone very badly if he had that outfit on; yet Tarkin felt distracted, under pressure. Vader suspected he was paying attention to the holocall with only about seventy percent of his mind.

"Well enough," said Tarkin with that same air of distraction. "I've kept things more or less together between my own skills and people's fear of you, but there is of course some skepticism. In the long run, it won't be any formal claim of heirship that cements our power here; only orderly command and believable shows of strength. In the short term, though, it would help a great deal if you appeared publicly with me. Ideally that would take place here on Coruscant - I'd rather not leave the planet to its own devices just now - but if you're not cleared for travel, Mustafar will do. I can have the holonets send recording droids down and they'll either edit in a Coruscant background or decide that the fortress makes enough of an impression on its own. The important thing is to get the matter resolved quickly, one way or another."

"I will go to Coruscant," Vader said.

Tarkin showed no outward reaction, none of the gratitude he ought to have shown Vader for agreeing to his favorite option. Tarkin did this, sometimes, when he wanted a particular outcome very much. When he worried it would make Vader uncomfortable and wanted not to inadvertently apply pressure. It was pointless, of course, since Vader could read his mind. "You're well enough?"

"I am certain of it," Vader lied. M4 had just told him that he _wasn't_ well. But Vader knew he could endure. He'd been ordered onto much more strenuous missions on worse days than this one, taken a painkiller and a stimulant and pushed himself onward. And Tarkin's analysis was correct; it would be best if they appeared together on Coruscant. Vader could recover from strain to his body as he always did, but a galactic regime would be harder to put back together.

Tarkin's expression softened again. "Good; it will be good to see you again. I'm glad. I’ll let the relevant officials know to expect you, and I’ll send you a more detailed briefing while you’re en route. But take care of yourself, won't you? Remember, you're mine."

Palpatine - while he was alive - had known about Vader and Tarkin's relationship, as well as the casual flings Vader sometimes had on the side. He had not disallowed it completely, but he'd micromanaged them, even down to the terms of endearment they were permitted to use. He had forbidden Tarkin in the strongest terms from calling Vader _mine,_ and likewise Vader from calling himself Tarkin's. Vader could possess his own lovers if he wished, but no one but Palpatine could call Vader their own.

In that context, _you're mine_ was a term of endearment more breathtaking, more personal, than even an _I love you._ No one would forbid it now. No one would ever be able to stop them again.

"I am yours," Vader replied, savoring the feel of it in his mouth. Feeling a rebellious joy, the first real joy he'd had since he woke up. "And you are mine."

The sly smile on Tarkin's face betrayed a joy that mirrored his own. "Very much so. I'll look forward to your arrival."

*

M4 complained, of course. And there was the matter of his new limbs, which had to be carefully calibrated on the first wearing. All that would take time. But Vader was an emperor now, and he would never let anyone refuse him anything again.

Which was why he ended up taking an extra painkiller and a stimulant, commandeering a team of medtechs, and being snuck aboard the _Executor_ flat on his back on a float pallet. His one good leg stuck out foolishly from under him while M4 tagged along, carting his new limbs in a large box, grumbling under her non-existent breath about Sith lords who didn't listen. He was delivered like cargo straight to his quarters, visible to as few eyes as possible, while Admiral Ozzel, receiving his orders by voice and text, set a course for Coruscant.

"One emperor, some assembly required," snarked one of the medtechs under her breath, and then her hand flew to her throat. Vader let her live, but only barely. There was no further comment.

Once they were on route, Vader sat propped up in the chair of his meditation chamber. M4 sat in the cramped, pressurized space with him and set about fiddling with his limbs. The best way to install new prosthetics was at home, while he was fully unsuited, but it could be done in here with a bit of elbow grease if need be.

"Lord Vader, we need to talk," said M4, as she eased one of his new arms into position. They looked exactly the same as the old ones, and the ones before that. At this point in his life, Vader had gone through more limb installations than he cared to keep track of.

"Do we?" said Vader.

"I mean the kind of talk where you actually listen to me," said M4. "I just want to make sure we're both on the same page about your treatment plan going forward. Lord Sidious isn't in charge of that anymore, so there are some options open that weren't before."

Vader turned his head to look at her. He was still in his black mask, though the helmet overtop of it had been removed. While she spoke, M4 was doing something complicated with the tiny wires and pistons in the prosthetic hand's wrist, getting them precisely into position. He found it both fascinating and nauseating, a reminder of the barely-human thing he was. After a moment he looked away again. "What do you mean?"

"Well," said M4, with the air of someone choosing her words very delicately, "mainly I mean psychiatric care. Lord Sidious always forbade that for religious reasons, didn't he?"

"That is true," said Vader.

She was oversimplifying slightly; Palpatine hadn't forbidden everything. M4 had been empowered to give Vader sedatives if he was a danger to himself, and to remind him to meditate. In one very specific case, Palpatine had approved a series of special-purpose exposure treatments so that Tarkin could touch Vader's skin without Vader having trauma flashbacks. What he'd forbidden was therapy in a more generalized sense - anything that stood a chance of improving Vader's everyday mental state.

"Okay, I'm going to start synching this wiring up to the nerves in your arm. Afferents before efferents, you know the drill. This'll hurt a little."

She poked at a few recessed button and the process began. Vader was familiar with this from previous installations. Once a prosthetic was calibrated to Vader's nervous system, it could be taken on and off with no more effort than a complicated boot, but the first calibration took a while. He sat stoically as little jolts of sensation began to filter in from the hand and wrist which, a second ago, had not felt like parts of his body.

"So," M4 continued, "it really depends on your own religious convictions and what you're comfortable with. But just so you know, I have programs for all kinds of psychotherapy. Talk based, drug based, behavioral based, you name it, I can do it. And I think that, um, you might be at a time in your life when you could benefit from something like that. No offense. Just my professional opinion, Lord Vader."

"The Dark Side requires, anger, hate, and fear," Vader said cautiously. "I cannot accept any treatment designed to eliminate those states."

M4 made a dispirited noise. "Yeah, that would be the objection on religious grounds. Like I said, no pressure, okay? But if you start feeling worse than you want to, option's there."

Vader might have murdered his master, but he was still a Sith Lord. The Sith drew power from negative emotions; the phrase _feeling worse than you want to_ was nonsensical to Sith. On the other hand, exposure therapy hadn't inhibited his ability to use the Force. He could imagine other targeted therapies, maybe, later. When there was a need. After all, Vader could do whatever he wanted now.

*

By the time all three new limbs were attached, Vader felt exhausted. Stimulant or no stimulant, his body didn't like being outside its tank today. His arms and his new leg felt like they'd been electrocuted all over again; the heavy suit pressed down painfully on his injured skin, and his head swam.

"You can take a nap, you know," said M4. "We're still a few hours out from Coruscant." So, after ejecting her from the meditation chamber, he did that.

Vader thought he was in reasonably good spirits, aside from being tired and ill; but when he was asleep, he had the nightmare again. That cold dark presence, swirling around his limbs, seeking a way in to his very mind.

 _No,_ he wailed in his dream. _No, no, no._

 _You are not free,_ the darkness purred. _You will never be free._

In his dream, Vader understood exactly what that meant for him, why it was true. It was the worst thing in the universe. But when he woke, to the soft chiming of the alarm that told him Coruscant was near, he could not recall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm experimenting with a slightly different process for this fic, so updates may be slightly uneven - some very fast and others more delayed. (Not to mention I still need to finish "People Are Beginning To Talk," and some not-fanfic projects.)
> 
> Of course, knowing me, I'm not going to be able to keep away from posting regardless.
> 
> Comments are love <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader makes his first public appearance as Emperor.

By the time Vader's shuttle was ready, he was fully awake. He'd taken another stimulant. His body might be falling apart but he felt sharp and alert, eager to press ahead. The shuttle made its way down from the _Executor_ 's hangar to a landing pad next to the Imperial Palace, one that only the Emperor's personal shuttle was allowed to use. It was accompanied by a nice, big, screaming escort of TIE fighters. Tarkin had sent a more detailed file, as promised, explaining what would be expected of Vader here, and Vader had hastily skimmed it on the way down. His new leg still felt slightly wrong, a little too sharp in some places and too dull in others, as new prosthetics tended to, but he could walk on it convincingly. He stood ready as the loading ramp descended, prepared to walk down the runway to the palace itself and greet his Empire.

_His_ Empire. He had called it that before, back when Palpatine ruled it, but it had never been so true.

The usual gout of steam accompanied the ramp's release, and he strode through it, enjoying the thought of how he must look. Tall and grand and inky black, emerging from the haze.

Then he saw the crowd that was assembled before him, and he nearly faltered.

It was a bright early morning, by Coruscanti time, and the honor guard assembled in front of the shuttle was the largest that Vader had ever seen. Rows on rows of soldiers at attention in their parade formations, more rows than he could count. Ranks and types of office that he couldn't even identify. Beyond them, the square in front of the Palace teemed with ordinary people; Tarkin had summoned every citizen in the Federal District for mandatory viewing. Even Palpatine had rarely commanded a crowd this size. At the throng's nearest edge, the crimson shapes of Royal Guards stood in neat lines, separating the Imperial machine from those it ruled. Flights of recording droids swooped around the scene like birds. Whatever happened here would be broadcast to the farthest corners of the galaxy.

Vader could feel the crowd's mix of emotions. People in gatherings like these acted as a superorganism: from their own perspective, each individual retained free will, but from a distance like Vader's the individuals were not so apparent. Instead he felt the emotions that rippled through the crowd as a collective, larger and wider than any one person.

Tarkin had said things were fraught, and he'd been right. The crowd knew better than to display any feeling but loyal adoration; but privately many felt skeptical, confused, afraid. They had trusted Palpatine to keep them safe; they did not like transitions. They did not know yet if what they saw would be true continuation of the Empire or an imposture.

Closer than the crowd, closer even than the parade formations, were a small line of moffs, advisers, officers, and administrators in their various regalia. Some of them he recognized as former cronies of Palpatine's; more were long-time allies of Tarkin's. But all of them were looking at Vader now. Each of them, in unison, dropped to one knee and bowed their head.

Vader was the Emperor now. People would kneel for _him_ now, because Vader was the Emperor. The thought wheeled around in his head without finding any purchase. He'd thought it would be a joy to him, seeing this. Instead he felt a strange, half-focused terror, and he did not know why.

At times like this, Vader was glad to be masked. All he had to do was keep striding forward and no one would sense hesitation. He could even look away; the people on their knees, and those watching, would interpret it as haughty disinterest. No one ever doubted that Vader was in control.

Beyond the other officials in their kneeling line, flanked by two short rows of his own Royal Guards, stood Tarkin. Alone of all the other officials, Tarkin did not kneel. He wore the same regalia Vader had seen in the holo-call, and Vader could see the colors in them now, to the extent that his mask's lenses allowed color. The white shaded into bright silver and then a set of intricate gradations of blue, from a sky-like color around the chest and sleeves, to midnight blue, to black. The circlet was also silver, but Tarkin did not wear it now. He stood at attention, with the circlet clasped in his hands before him, his eyes fixed completely on Vader.

As Vader approached, Tarkin reached out to him. Vader clasped Tarkin's bare hand in his gloved one. This was a strange feeling. Everyone who mattered already knew about Vader and Tarkin's relationship, but they weren't given to public affection. It was not their relationship itself, but the symbolism that mattered here. Tarkin had not simply refused to kneel; he alone was not required to. He was welcomed.

Tarkin lifted up the circlet and Vader took it from him, placing it carefully with his own hands on Tarkin's brow.

There was a strange, half-terrified cheer from the crowd below.

Vader had no crown of his own. He did not need one. Nothing could be more kingly or imposing than the armor that he already wore; he could not be more commanding than he was.

"Thank you," Tarkin murmured to him, in tones too low for the crowd to hear. Vader did not reply. He knew his voice tended to carry across distances, regardless of whether he wanted it to or not.

They strode side by side to a nearby balcony overlooking the square. Vader was familiar with the spot; Palpatine had often made official proclamations from here. Sometimes Vader had been required to appear at his side, a silent bulk, arms folded, only half-listening. His role in such appearances had been entirely passive. A symbol of power, a suggestion of what the Empire's enemies should fear.

Not anymore. Now it was his turn.

"Emperor Palpatine is dead," Vader said to the gathered masses, and he thrilled to the sound of the words through his modulator; he hadn't said them aloud before.

The sonic transmitters embedded in the balcony projected his words across the square, and he felt a shiver of mental response from the crowd.

Public attention like this could be addictive. The actual content of Palpatine's speeches had usually bored Vader, and sometimes instead of paying attention he'd idly ridden those waves of collective emotion, watching the crowd's mental movements like a ballet. Palpatine was the leading partner, and the crowd followed him wherever he wished. Vader had never taken the lead in this dance himself before, and it startled him how different it felt this way, how much brighter and sharper, when the attention of those thousands of people was all fixed on _him._

"We have already honored his life and mourned his death," said Vader. Tarkin had suggested that he express some fondness for Palpatine to begin with, to play the part of a loyal and grieving heir, but Vader balked at saying any good thing directly. "Sheev Palpatine was born into the useless quagmire of the Republic. In the grip of war and in the wake of the Jedi Order's betrayal, he forged those raw materials into our Galactic Empire, which stands strong against all its enemies. But no human official, however high and strong, is exempt from the powers of death."

The crowd was even more closely fixed on him now, with a horrified anticipation. They were wondering, he realized, if he was about to confess to Palpatine's murder. He _could,_ if he wanted to, right here and now. He wondered what effect that would have.

Vader couldn't work a crowd with Palpatine's finesse; his senses weren't as subtle or as delicate. Palpatine could have wormed his way into each individual mind in a crowd like this one. He could nudge each one to hear in his words exactly the things they most wanted to hear. Vader didn't know how to do that. But he could listen to his impulses and improvise, as he did so often.

"I am Emperor Palpatine's heir," said Vader. "I have learned at his feet from the Empire's very beginning, and I have seen much. I have fought on the front lines beside the Empire's best troopers, flown the Empire's fighters into deadly combat, rooted out inefficiency on the floors of its factories and in the depths of its mines. I understand not only the dream of Empire, but the cost of such dreams in lives and blood. As an Emperor who hides in his palace, pretending to be immortal and untouchable, cannot."

That got a response so strong, particularly from the troops in their parade formations, that Vader nearly turned his head to look at them. Good; the stormtroopers had been brought to his side. The troops had always loved Vader for his willingness to fight with them. The common people could be brought around to share that love, given time. As for the officers and high families, well, most of those had never liked Vader anyway. But he knew how to bully them into compliance, and if he needed finesse with the high strata of society, he had Tarkin for that.

"I will not make the mistakes of my predecessor," said Vader. He raised his hand and picked up two of the nearest Royal Guards with the Force, sending them floating gently into the air as a show of his strength. The guards were too disciplined to struggle much, though he could feel their alarm. "As Emperor, I will deal with the galaxy's greatest threats personally. My Empire's enemies will face not only the ships I command from afar, but my own person, wielding the full power of the Force."

He could feel how the crowd liked _that_ one, hah. Tarkin always went on about ruling through the fear of force. Vader was the most fearful, forceful person in the galaxy. And in some ways it was really two sides of the same coin, fearing a personified force of darkness or praying for it to come to one's aid. _This_ part was easy.

He made a lowering gesture with his hand, and the guards landed lightly back down on their feet, none the worse for wear. They hastily resumed standing at respectful attention.

"But an Empire cannot be ruled from a vacant throne," Vader continued. "And so I have selected a partner in rulership who will remain here, seeing to the galaxy's everyday concerns. Wilhuff Tarkin has served with Emperor Palpatine and myself since the Empire's beginning. He has fought fearsomely to increase the Empire's might, and he has ruled the most fractious territory well. I have placed my trust in him completely, and I consider him worthy of ruling the galaxy at my side."

He motioned, and Tarkin stepped forward to a smatter of applause more hesitant than before. In some ways Tarkin was nearly as fearsome as Vader, but it was impossible for a mere uniformed man without Force abilities to match Vader's mystique, and Tarkin's career had its controversies. Only three weeks ago his prized Death Star, on which he and Palpatine banked everything, had been destroyed by the Rebels during its first few days in operation. Tarkin had only barely escaped with his life. Even if he'd stayed a mere Grand Moff, he would have had the work of restoring his reputation cut out for him. To establish himself as a capable emperor would take even more. But Vader would be there to lend him strength.

"Any who fail to treat his orders as the orders of an emperor," Vader concluded, "will answer to _me._ "

There was applause, and he stepped back, allowing Tarkin to take the crowd's attention for himself. He felt it the instant it left. It was as if the very rocks of this overdeveloped world had shone a spotlight up at Vader, only to suddenly blink it back off.

Vader was abruptly dizzy. Intent on his task and intoxicated by the attention, he hadn't realized how quickly the second stimulant was wearing off. That didn't bode well for the third one, should he choose to take a third, and more than three would cause other unpleasant effects. His head was pounding, and his half-healed wounds were nagging at him, threatening to reopen, even though he'd done nothing more complicated than walk a bit and briefly pick things up with the Force.

But he'd done what he'd come here to do. All that remained was to make his exit without fouling anything up.

Tarkin was making a speech of his own now. Vader couldn't focus on the words, but the mere sound of Tarkin's voice was soothing. He folded his arms imposingly and meditated, letting himself drift in thoughts of the crowd and the Dark Side.

Coruscant was not as rich in the Dark Side as Mustafar, but it would do. On Mustafar the Dark Side existed in its wildest, most elemental forms. The burning ground, the smoking sky, the secret nodes of a deeper and more hateful power beneath. On Coruscant one had to look a little harder, but only a little. Ambition and fear, greed and brutality lurked in every corner. They had always done so here, and the Empire, if anything, had made them stronger. Directly behind him, in the palace itself, there were further darknesses. The remnants of the rage and despair of the Jedi Order's fall. The miasma that Palpatine had brought with him onto what was once the Light Side's sacred ground, which had settled in, over nineteen years, like a coating of dust.

The palace might have officially changed hands already, but it would be a long time before it stopped carrying the faint impression left by Palpatine's mind. It would take more than mere remodeling to get rid of those stains. Even if Vader changed the place so thoroughly in his own image that he could no longer feel his master, even then, the trace of Palpatine's existence might not be fully gone. It would merely be buried, one layer of detritus covered up by the next, a palimpsest of darkness.

*

Tarkin didn't dare to pause and look back at Vader until his own speech was done. Still, he was pleased. Vader had done well. It had been a genuine thrill to watch as Vader strode down the shuttle ramp and claimed his own Empire for the first time. Vader's short and to-the-point speech, too, had mesmerized him. He had never seen Vader perform that particular task, and he was surprised how easily Vader seemed to attune to the crowd.

They'd only been apart two weeks, but Tarkin had _missed_ Vader with an unusual intensity. Tarkin was no stranger to brutal battles and their casualties, but the aftermath of that final duel with Palpatine had alarmed him. Vader hadn't been responsive, and his ventilator had hitched and squeaked so pathetically that Tarkin hadn't been sure any air was getting in. It was only the patterning of the suit's indicator lights that told him Vader was still alive. And then he'd barely had a minute to direct the medtechs where they needed to go before he'd had to get a hold of himself and do his own part of the work. To draw himself up to his most imposing height, to walk uninvited into the throne room itself and explain the new rules. To place his own hand on the fulcrum of the galaxy before anyone else could, so that things would be in their proper places for Vader when he returned.

_If_ he returned.

In truth, Vader probably didn't understand yet how dicey this was. In a way, aside from the issue of Palpatine's Force powers, it would almost have been easier for Tarkin to take over the galaxy without him. Being co-emperors meant Tarkin had to constantly invoke Vader's claim to heirship in front of people who weren't sure where Vader was hiding, what Tarkin had done with him, or whether the supposed alliance between them was all Tarkin's invention. An argument from Tarkin's own authority would have been cruder and narrower in scope, but at least it would have been correctly understood.

As it was, Tarkin thought he'd done a good job. His decisiveness and forethought had allowed him to hold all of Coruscant, as well as the loyalty of most of the Imperial governors and the bulk of the military. But a not inconsiderable number of other power players had refused to acknowledge him. Several had broken away with their own armed factions, including nearly all of the old Ruling Council, and now a new civil war loomed. The Rebel Alliance had gleefully taken advantage of that disarray, and in two weeks they’d already helped two minor outlying worlds to declare independence - a temporary independence, to be crushed as soon as the Empire was re-unified, but independence nonetheless. If this went badly, the Rebels might graduate from a mere group of insurgents to a group as large and powerful as the Separatists before them, and Tarkin had no wish to fight that war over again.

Vader's public endorsement of Tarkin would help a great deal. It wouldn't remove the dissenting factions, but it would significantly reduce their popular support. Mas Amedda might still make noises, but every other contender for the throne would have to admit aloud that Emperor Vader had a better formal claim than theirs, and that they still opposed him.

At last Tarkin finished his rehearsed speech. There was the mandatory burst of applause from those gathered, and he stood regally long enough to acknowledge it before sweeping back into the palace, with Vader and the Royal Guards and a smattering of aides at his side.

"That was splendid, Vader, thank you," he said as soon as they were out of range of the transmitters. "You've helped more than I think you can even understand yet. Have you done much public speaking before? You seemed to take to it naturally."

"Yes," said Vader, in a tone oddly devoid of pride. Generally Vader liked to boast of his abilities, but Tarkin wouldn't fault him for being too tired now. He knew Vader's recovery from that last battle was not yet complete. He'd have been more reticent to invite him out to Coruscant if the situation hadn't been so urgent.

"You took a more populist tone than I was expecting, but a populist streak might be beneficial at this stage and it'll be easy enough to incorporate into our existing plans. You're particularly famous, after all; you might as well put it to use."

"Yes," said Vader, looking straight ahead as he walked.

Tarkin frowned slightly. "Under Palpatine your primary duties were those of an enforcer, and you've now publicly stated an intention to continue in that role. There's nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but have you given any thought to how you'll balance it with the need to present yourself as an authoritative decision-maker?"

"As you wish," said Vader.

An awful fear was growing in the depths of Tarkin's mind. He halted in the middle of the hall, and Vader stumbled slightly before stopping alongside him, confirming his suspicions.

Tarkin turned to the Royal Guards, who were looking at them both quizzically. "Give us a moment, please."

The guards withdrew a few feet, just enough that he could speak to Vader with some modicum of privacy.

"Vader," said Tarkin, softly and urgently, reaching out a hand to touch his upper arm. "Tell me where you are."

It was probably only fatigue from his injuries, but if Vader entered a sufficiently dissociative state, whether from fatigue or any other trigger, that would be... bad. Tarkin had seen it happen before, and he was not keen to repeat the experience. Perhaps he'd miscalculated, after all, bringing Vader here so soon.

Vader looked around for a moment. "This is the palace."

Tarkin fractionally relaxed. "Do you know who I am?"

"You are Wilhuff Tarkin, of course."

"Do you remember why we're here?"

Vader paused, having to search for the answer. "I gave a speech. You gave a speech. We are emperors now. Palpatine is gone. I was on my shuttle. People knelt. Everyone is... kneeling."

Tarkin stepped closer, leaning in to be certain that no one but Vader could hear. "You weren't actually well enough to make this journey, were you, Vader?"

"It was necessary."

"Are you in need of immediate medical attention, or merely rest?"

"I do not know," said Vader. "Rest. I think."

Tarkin pulled back and addressed the small group around them. "Have Emperor Vader's provisional personal quarters been prepared as I commanded? And are they stocked with his current roster of medicines?"

The crisply dressed woman who stepped forward was a palace aide; Tarkin took a moment to remember her name. Sull Bantani, that was it. Bantani was responsible for delivering his orders to the house servants and droids, and for coordinating everyday matters among those groups. "Yes, my lord, including the additional medicines that were sent down with the shuttle. Although..."

Tarkin looked at her sharply. "Although what?"

Bantani paused, then looked over Tarkin's shoulder and caught Vader's eye, nodding respectfully to _him._ "My lord Vader, was it your intention to be housed for the time being in the quarters you used during Emperor Palpatine's administration?"

Vader paused. "That will do."

Tarkin looked back and forth between them, wondering what was going on. Of _all_ the times to be blindsided by some wrinkle in palace procedures.

"If the quarters are not to your liking," Bantani continued, "we can of course move them. Reinstalling your meditation chamber in an alternate location of your choosing would take several hours, but it would not be any difficulty."

Vader stepped forward, towering over her. "Do not waste my time asking the same question twice. If I say it will do, it will _do._ "

Tarkin watched with a frown as Bantani shrank back. She had no way of knowing that this was not mere impatience, but one of Vader's trauma responses. Palpatine had not merely visited torments and humiliations on Vader; he had made Vader insistently agree to them, again and again. Nor _should_ a servant like Bantani know about that, really. It was better for an emperor to keep that sort of mental vulnerability to himself.

"Understood, my lord," said Bantani. "Your quarters are fully prepared."

Vader immediately turned away, flanked by the nearest pair of Royal Guards.

"Vader," said Tarkin before he could walk off. "If you need anything, you can send for me. At any time."

But if Vader heard those words, as he marched off into the depths of the palace, he gave no sign.

Tarkin turned to another aide, this one in charge of communications. "Get me a private line to the _Executor_ in the next few minutes. Tell them I want to speak to the droid Vader brought with him. Bantani, explain to me what's just happened here."

Bantani cleared her throat. "My lord, when you ordered Emperor Vader's usual palace quarters prepared for him, were you aware of their location?"

"I'd assumed they were near the Imperial Suite," said Tarkin. He'd assumed that Vader, as Palpatine's own right hand, would be used to guest quarters commensurate with those of the Grand Vizier and Ruling Council. But perhaps he'd been mistaken. That would be like Palpatine, after all. Perhaps Vader had just allowed himself to be shown off to some minor emissary's room, or even a high-ranking servant's, when he ought to have been accommodated in all the luxury due to an emperor. Tarkin was not happy with this at all.

"No, my lord. The only room with a functioning meditation chamber in this palace is in the unfinished levels."

Tarkin felt his jaw tighten, and Bantani stepped back. She must have seen the cold fury in his face. This was even worse than what he'd pictured. "The _unfinished_ levels?"

"I'm afraid so, my lord. The supply officers didn't ask for clarification; they must have assumed that you knew. Shall I issue a reprimand?"

He let out a short breath. "No. But get me Architect Leffe as soon as I'm finished my call to the _Executor._ At the moment Emperor Vader needs his rest urgently, but as soon as he is awake again, this ends."

Tarkin wondered how many other traps like this remained. Little things Palpatine had designed to put Vader in his place, things the servants barely questioned. And Vader had agreed to it so readily; was that merely his exhaustion, or something deeper? Vader was as much an emperor as Tarkin was; but it might take longer than Tarkin had thought, convincing him of what that should mean.

*

Vader blearily followed the guards to the unfinished levels. Vader did not often sleep in this palace. He usually preferred to sleep on his ship, flying away from Coruscant as quickly as possible. But running back to the _Executor_ so soon after Tarkin's coronation would look strange; the common people would not like it. Vader had quarters with a functioning meditation chamber, precisely for occasions such as these when leaving immediately was impractical, or when Palpatine demanded he stay.

Palpatine had been the one to order those quarters created, though. And, with his usual perverse sense of humor, Palpatine had chosen its location. The unfinished levels were parts of the palace that had not been used since the Jedi Order's fall, and had not been repaired or remodeled, since Palpatine neither needed the space nor feared the Jedi's power. Vader's quarters were set up for him in the midst of what had once been a series of small private lodgings for Jedi Knights. Vader's old self had slept in this same room, between missions, for so many long years. It was Anakin Skywalker's room.

The bodies had been removed long ago, but this whole annex of the Palace still faintly screamed in the Force, thick with betrayal and grief. The room itself no longer looked the same, with the shining black shell of the meditation chamber intruding where there had once been a single spartan bunk, but it carried its echoes with it nonetheless. Staying in here had often been a torment to Vader, but right now he was too exhausted to care. He loaded his nutrients and medicines; he staggered into the meditation chamber and let it close around him. He leaned back into the padded chair as the chamber's usual mechanical arms came down, ready to relieve him of some of the heaviest parts of his armor. He was out like a light before they had finished their work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader deals with some logistical aspects of being emperor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> social distancing? massive anxiety? that's cool i'll just. be even more of a mentally unstable fanfic hermit than i was already. this is fine
> 
> this chapter is pretty boring but chapter 4 will come soon. there's really a very slow burn happening in these early parts of the story. we'll find out what the dream apparition is (and meet the other tagged characters/themes) eventually.

Vader kept waking up unwillingly. He felt the chamber's mechanical arms putting his armor back on him before he was ready, and he jerked awake, to be calmed with an "Easy there, Lord Vader, sorry about this, it's just you need your noontime medicines. Like, _really_ need them. You can go back to sleep after that. Here, I'll-"

She slotted the medicine packets into place in their ports and let Vader's suit empty them into his bloodstream automatically. He was too groggy to argue. This process repeated several times, with his daily doses of medicine or fluids or nutrients, the clock ticking along without his quite being able to keep track of it. He fell back asleep, each time, so quickly that often he didn't remember her exiting the chamber.

If Vader was at home in his tank, M4 wouldn't have had to do anything this awkward. She could have used the tank's built-in functions to keep him stable through days or even weeks of unconsciousness. But meditation chambers were designed for a Vader who was on his own and could take marginal care of himself. If he'd been alone, he would have stayed awake to take the necessary substances himself. Or slept through their allotted times and incurred the consequences. That had happened before, too.

He heard her grumbling about Tarkin's presumptuousness, but he wasn't awake enough to really process the argument.

He was more concerned with the dreams that came.

Whenever he closed his eyes, it was the same thing. The same amorphous presence, greedily reaching for him. The same mental cries of _no,_ which kept it only barely at bay. Vader didn't know what this was, but he understood what it wanted: nothing more or less than to take him over. To wear his broken body like a puppet; to possess him so fully that he would cease to exist. Only this thing would remain, moving and looking like him. He would never be free.

At last there was an awakening that left him blinking up through his mask at the meditation chamber's red-lit walls, tired and aching but thinking more clearly than before. He did not hear M4 nearby or see the chamber moving around him. This time he must have woken up on his own.

In the dream he had been terrified. Now he was _annoyed._ Was this going to keep happening? Vader was well accustomed to nighttime premonitions, but they never did him any good.

This didn't feel like other premonitions. Palpatine knew how to foresee all sorts of things, but Vader only ever foresaw people's deaths. And he hadn't seen anyone dying in his dream.

Yet he couldn't convince himself it was only a dream.

Maybe his mind, addled by injury, was playing tricks on him. But he had a creeping feeling that the thing he'd seen was real. Some kind of Force entity trying to make contact, a threat just past the edge of his waking perception. He needed to look into it further.

He assessed his surroundings. What time was it? He Force-pressed a few buttons and a set of numerals lit up on one wall. It was early morning; he'd slept for nearly twenty-four hours.

Tarkin was probably wondering where he was.

*

Awake and walking through the Imperial Palace, with the Royal Guards at his side, Vader was able to assess its state more clearly than before. Ever since it was taken from the Jedi, this had been an odd place. The corridors were unnaturally cold, painted a color as inky-dark as space itself, and they'd often been near-empty when Vader had been here before. Advisers had shuffled through them like ghouls in their puffy finery, flanked by aides and guards, between intervals of silence.

Tarkin's coup had changed all that. Vader could feel it in the palace's energies; he could see it plainly in the servants and officials that went rushing about, more numerous and more efficient than before. Tarkin's expectations were different than Palpatine's, and adjusting to them had become everyone's full-time work.

Vader did not feel any warning signs of insurrection. His senses might not detect an individual's betrayal unless they thought about it in front of him; but _groups_ didn't rebel until they'd reached a more palpable breaking point, and he didn't feel that now. The palace was genuinely Tarkin's, it seemed. The people here were either loyal to him or at least content enough to focus on their work.

As the Royal Guards brought Vader closer to the throne room, he felt an odd tremor of fear. He imagined, for a strange moment, that Palpatine's wrinkled grinning face might leap out at him. But it didn't.

The door opened, and he walked through.

Palpatine's throne room - no, _the Imperial_ throne room, _his and Tarkin's_ now - was laid out almost exactly as Vader remembered. It was a long, open room, as black and sinister as the rest of the palace, marked by small splashes of color. Tarkin had made only two changes so far. He'd lit it better, first of all; the room was merely dim now, where it once had been dark as night. Second, Palpatine's throne had been replaced. There were now two, side by side. They were no grander than the black armchair Palpatine had used, but their design was slightly different. Less ominous, more angular.

In the right-hand throne sat Tarkin, in much the same getup as yesterday, although today's robe was a different cut. There was a subtle reflectiveness to the fibers, particularly the white and silvery ones gracing the upper parts of Tarkin's body. In the room's low lights they made him shine forth with a brilliance matched only by the pure red of the Guards. Light glinted brightly off the silver circlet that marked him as Emperor.

What a contrast the two of them would make, with Vader sitting at his side. A star and a shadow.

Tarkin had been speaking in low tones to an adviser - not a member of Palpatine's ruling council, Vader noted, but some other man, military-uniformed and polite. As Vader approached, Tarkin waved the man away.

Vader had to suppress the urge to drop to one knee. Bow his head. That was what he'd _always_ had to do in this room, on this rolled-out carpet. But now he didn't have to. He would never have to do that again.

He felt something strange, almost a vertigo, as he walked past the point where he was usually expected to genuflect. All the way up, until he faced the thrones themselves.

Tarkin favored him with a small smile. "Good morning, Vader. Feeling any better?"

Bracing himself, Vader turned one hundred and eighty degrees and sat heavily down on his throne.

It was built for the weight of him; it didn't even creak. He looked out at the room before him. He'd seen it many times, the long dark imposing space, but it looked different from up here.

"Yes," he said.

The throne faced forward, and so he felt rather than saw when Tarkin's smile turned sly. "Good. Leave us."

The guards obediently filed out, and Vader suppressed another small frisson of fear. When Palpatine dismissed the guards, he wanted to be alone with Vader for some exquisitely unpleasant purpose. But being alone with Tarkin wasn't like that. It would be better. Probably.

It turned out that both thrones could rotate, using small motors, and face each other. That left Vader and Tarkin focused directly on each other, their knees a whisper away from touching. It helped, being able to focus directly on Tarkin and not on the rest of the room.

"I want to apologize, first," said Tarkin. "For making you sleep down there in the unfinished levels. I ordered your usual quarters prepared, but I didn't realize they were down there until the very last moment. That was utterly unacceptable. You are an emperor. You will not and must not be made to sleep in the basement like trash."

"I am fine," said Vader. He didn't like the unfinished levels, but he'd been too tired to care. They were more of a torment when he wasn't tired, when he had to lie awake and feel the echoes of Jedi agony around him.

"You are not fine. You were so exhausted yesterday morning you barely knew where you were." Tarkin sighed shortly. "I won't let it happen again. Now that you're awake, where do you want your meditation chamber moved? There's space in the Imperial Suite, either in the bedchamber itself or an adjoining room, or we could assign you to one of the highest-ranking guest suites until such time as we have a proper pressurized room with a bacta tank."

"The guest suite will do," said Vader.

Tarkin pursed his lips, but he knew better than to argue. Instead he leaned forward and idly took one of Vader's hands, running his thumb along the gloved palm. "How are you feeling, now that you've rested? It took a few days for me before it really sank in that I'm an emperor now. I imagine it's similar for you."

Vader gave Tarkin a long look. He did look good in those shining robes of his, but also strange. Vader didn't think his mind had fully come back to him yet; surely things shouldn't have felt this strange. Tarkin touching his hands was not new, but tenderness in _this_ room, of all places, was strange. He wasn't sure if he trusted it. He did not want it to stop.

He didn't want to tell Tarkin he was tired; Tarkin had already noticed that, and to speak further about it would be dwelling on his weakness. He didn't want to tell Tarkin about the nightmares, either. It was difficult talking to non-Force-sensitive people about nightmares. They'd try to reassure him by telling him dreams weren't real, which was not reassuring; it wasn't helpful to be told he couldn't trust his own senses. Tarkin had believed him about other Force things before, but _still._ Vader would tell Tarkin about them later, when was better prepared to explain.

He didn't want to say he was overwhelmed. He didn't want to admit that he still expected Palpatine around every corner.

"I do not know," he said.

"You're still recovering, I'm sure. Emfour says she wants you home no later than tonight or tomorrow."

Vader bristled, pulling back. "Emfour is not my master."

Tarkin narrowed his eyes, but his tone softened. "No, you don't have one of those anymore, do you? But whether you're free or not, your bodily health will follow its own rules, and none of us want you ill nor dead. You don't want that, either, I hope."

Vader perversely still wanted to argue, but it wouldn't have gone well.

After regarding him another moment, Tarkin let Vader's hand go and settled back in his throne. "Was there anything in particular you wanted to do while you're here? You could go back to Mustafar immediately, if you'd like, but my staff have been clamoring for permission to run you through a few procedural things first."

"Procedural things?"

"Yes, things like the protocols for how we'll communicate and coordinate the Empire's business between us. Palpatine contacted you only when he needed you, but as an emperor you'll need to keep abreast of matters more actively. If you want input into the current military situation, you can also have your first briefing with the Joint Chiefs."

Vader had not thought of any of that. He remembered the Joint Chiefs, though; he'd met with them many times before. And he could sense in Tarkin's mind that the military situation was not stable; he should attend to that. "Fine," he said. "Bring them in."

Before their coup, Vader and Tarkin had worked out how they would divide the responsibilities of rulership. Vader wanted to rule, in the inchoate angry do-as-I-say way of all Sith Lords, but he did not have a politician's training, nor a politician's patience for negotiations and committees. Tarkin had those things. But Tarkin was so power-hungry that, if Vader claimed him merely as a consort or a Grand Vizier, he would inevitably end up running everything anyway. Vader would become a figurehead, a convenient black-masked icon for the people to revere.

So Vader had considered what sort of power he wanted, and what he could cede in exchange for his freedom. And he and Tarkin had come to an agreement that suited them both. They would both be emperors. Tarkin wouldn't need to sneak behind Vader's back for the influence he craved, because it would be his from the beginning. In return, Vader had asked for a handful of guarantees. He wanted to keep Tarkin's attention. To keep his lava fortress and the other parts of his lifestyle that suited him, which were maintained with Imperial funds. To fight for the Empire only when he chose to; he took too much pride in his fighting to stop, but he would not be ordered into battle against his will. And to know that, if he did want to give other orders as emperor, they would be treated with the same authority as Tarkin's own.

It had seemed simple when Vader laid it out that way. He hadn't really thought about what would be required, logistically, to make it all happen.

Tarkin flipped a comms switch on the arm of his throne. "Nemeus, if you could come in now."

By the time the requested officials filed in, Vader and Tarkin had turned their thrones to face forward again. There were several of them, some in courtly finery, a few in servant's livery or officer's grays. Each one dropped to one knee and genuflected as they reached the correct position halfway into the room, while the Royal Guards watched them carefully.

The sight of them kneeling still agitated Vader for reasons he couldn't explain. "You may rise," he said, and they did so. None of these people had ever spoken to Vader before, and they all carried a suitable level of fear when faced with his dark armor and his deep voice. Most hid it well.

"This is Alba Nemeus, my chief of staff," said Tarkin, gesturing to a pale, trim man near the head of the group. He was the one Tarkin had been talking to when Vader came in, and he showed more skill at keeping composure than the rest.

Nemeus stepped forward. He didn't genuflect again, but inclined his head deeply. "My lord."

"The rest of these people constitute the new Imperial Ruling Council, as well as a few important servants and others to whom these logistical matters are relevant."

"What happened to the old Ruling Council?" Vader said. The old Ruling Council had been a tight-knit group of very old men who constituted the closest thing Palpatine had to friends. Some worshiped the Dark Side, though they weren't Force-sensitive enough to be Sith. Others were mere lackeys and yes-men. Vader hadn't liked any of them, but it was odd to see none of them present.

"Most of them have mysteriously fled," said Tarkin. "I'd like to talk to you about that, actually, but it's a matter for the Joint Chiefs meeting. Nemeus, if you could introduce Emperor Vader to the options we were discussing."

So the old Ruling Council was not only missing, but it was somehow a military matter. That did not bode well. Had they chosen, from among themselves, some rival claimant to the throne?

Vader wanted to talk about this right _now,_ but Tarkin clearly didn't, and this Alba Nemeus person had already opened his mouth. His tones were clipped and clear, just as Tarkin preferred. "As you know, my lord, the Empire has never had two equal co-Emperors before. Even in the time of the Republic, a single Supreme Chancellor presided over the Senate. As such, we are in the process of restructuring to facilitate efficient co-rulership between both of you. We don't want any accidental contradictions or lapses in communication to arise. I understand that you and Emperor Tarkin have discussed your roles, and you see the bulk of the administrative work as Emperor Tarkin's, while you will take a more active military role, spending long intervals away from the capital and only occasionally giving policy orders. Is that also your understanding, my lord?"

"As you say," said Vader. He could sense that Nemeus was slightly flummoxed by the idea, but he was too professional to let that get in the way.

"Understood, my lord. However, there is reason for you to keep informed of policy developments regardless. You'll need to know what decisions Emperor Tarkin makes so as to help to enforce them if you agree, and resolve the matter quickly if you don't; you'll also need to synchronize your talking points for public appearances like yesterday's. Fortunately, the information can be condensed to the level of detail you prefer. While you're at the palace, a member of the palace staff will brief you each morning. On Mustafar or in your other travels, either one of us can accompany you, or you can assign the duty to an officer with a security clearance of alpha or better. Are you with me so far, my lord?"

"Yes," said Vader. He was familiar with military briefings, but they usually only happened on or before a mission. He wasn't sure he wanted them every day. But the logic was difficult to refute. "Continue."

What followed was a long conversation in which he and Nemeus, with occasional interjections from Tarkin, discussed where Vader's interests lay as a ruler. Nemeus was good at distilling the options quickly and clearly, and Vader was intrigued to discover that he had more preferences than he'd thought. There were matters in which he did want to be updated in detail - counterinsurgency against the Rebels, for instance. There were matters, such as tax policy, that meant nothing to him. There were many in between. It was odd to realize that he _could_ give orders in an area such as ship-manufacturing commissions or relations with Hutt space. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with that power, but he liked it.

And Tarkin liked that he liked it. He felt that, too: a little glow of something almost like pride.

"Do you have any policy orders effective immediately, my lord?" Nemeus said at last. "You should give some thought to choosing your first official act as Emperor; that will set a tone for your rule going forward."

"I am disbanding the Inquisitorius," Vader said.

Tarkin turned his head at that; everyone felt surprised, but he'd already made up his mind before the meeting. The Inquisitorius was a responsibility Palpatine had given to him, and Vader had never liked it.

"The Empire will no longer hunt Force-sensitive individuals merely for being Force-sensitive," said Vader. "Those acts were once necessary in the wake of the Jedi Order's betrayal. But the Jedi are dust and we stand in their ruins. Even Obi-Wan Kenobi is gone now, a broken man who lacked the strength even to defend himself. As their memory dies, such vigilance against their return is no longer necessary. Only those Force users who take action against the Empire will be hunted, and they will face me directly."

In the small moments when he wasn't fixated on the coup itself, Vader had been thinking about this. After so long in hiding, it meant something that his old master and brother and rival and betrayer had come to face him at last. He had seemed so weak and spent, yet so sure of himself, and at the moment of death his body had somehow _vanished._ It meant something, but Vader could not yet untangle it.

Obi-Wan _was_ dead, despite the vanishing act. Vader had felt that. But there were other new threats in the Force, and they'd all emerged so close to each other. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, whom they'd suspected of rebellion for years, had turned out to be not only a Rebel but a Force-sensitive one. She was untrained and ignorant of her power, but he'd realized it when she'd resisted his mind probe. Even Jedi Masters couldn't often withstand Vader's interrogations. He'd considered it moot, since she was scheduled for termination anyway, but now she was at large again. And there was the other one, too, the boy who'd fired the shot that destroyed the Death Star, whose name Vader did not yet know. He'd come out of nowhere, but the Force had been strong with him, too.

So Vader needed to deal with that. As soon as he was well, he would begin the hunt for them both, as well as looking into the source of the presence from his dreams. But he wanted to do those things alone. Commanding a team of weaker Dark Side adepts, whom he'd never liked anyway, would not help him.

"Understood, my lord," said Nemeus, noting this down. "Do you wish to announce this immediately, or shall I wait until you have contacted the Inquisitors?"

Vader had imagined announcing it immediately, but he could feel Nemeus' concern for etiquette and for the Inquisitors' feelings, and he changed his mind. "The latter."

"Very good, my lord."

"I also want a review of all Imperial propaganda materials regarding the Force. My predecessor wished to erase the Jedi Order's memory, even to the point of denying their abilities. That is not my own wish. I will not impose a state religion; but neither will I actively teach my Empire that I do not exist. Have a small group seek out all such teachings and discontinue them. They should not need my close supervision."

Nemeus noted that down, too, with equanimity. "Yes, my lord. Anything else at the moment, my lord?"

"No."

"I will stress that these arrangements are not set in stone. At any given time, if you wish to revise the terms of your division of roles with Emperor Tarkin, you need simply say so to him. We are all of us at both of your service, my lord."

He nodded respectfully to Vader again, really more of a bow, and stepped back. The next person to step forward was a woman in the gray-white uniform of a specialist. She bowed her own head while Tarkin said, "Next, this is Jora Leffe, chief Imperial Architect. She's here to talk about your quarters."

Vader was nonplussed. "The matter of my quarters was already addressed."

"Provisionally, yes. We agreed to move your meditation chamber from the unfinished levels to one of the guest suites. But as emperor you will need more than a mere meditation chamber. You deserve to live here in comfort. Jora, show him the preliminary designs."

"My lord." Leffe kept herself bent a moment longer, then straightened; she was a heavyset woman with tightly-curled dark hair, and she showed her nerves more visibly than Nemeus. "The Imperial Palace's current design assumes a single Emperor who, in his personal time, occupies a single Imperial suite - one currently equipped with a bedroom, private office, wardrobe, refresher, and sitting room. Our first assumption was that a pair of co-Emperors in a conjugal relationship would wish to share that suite. However, I'm told that your personal health issues preclude this. I've been studying the designs of your fortress on Mustafar, and I believe a similar facility with regards to your daily needs could be constructed here without altering the Palace's outward shape."

She paused as though to give Vader a chance to respond, although she had not, in fact, asked a question. Vader recognized this type of person: once they could speak of their favorite topic, much of their fear fell away. Sometimes their good sense fell with it, but this woman was tolerable for now.

"The designs, Jora," Tarkin repeated after a moment.

"Yes, my lord," she said, and hastily pressed a key on her datapad.

A hologram sprang into view showing preliminary schematics for a pressurized room like the one Vader used on Mustafar. A fully oxygenated, temperature-controlled hyperbaric space with a customized bacta tank on a dais at its center. The display showed several options for inserting that room into the palace's existing structure, either by excavating the unfinished levels or by moving other minor functions down there. Several of the schematics included adjoining rooms, but those rooms were sketchy and empty.

"As you can see, my lord," said Leffe, "it would be easy enough, given time and resources, to replicate your life support technologies in an appropriate part of the palace. Within the week my team and I can flesh these out into fully specified designs for you to choose from. Now, what would help with that process is more knowledge about your own needs in regards to a living space. Do you think you will be staying on Coruscant full-time, or will your primary place of residence continue to be Mustafar?"

Vader hadn't actually even thought about that. The thought of permanently staying _here,_ in what had been the Jedi's temple and Palpatine's palace, unnerved him. Would he like that? Would he hate it? How was he supposed to know?

"You needn't decide immediately," Tarkin interjected. "If you're not sure, then the wisest course is to ensure you can stay indefinitely in either location. Then you can move between them as you see fit."

Vader waved his hand, flustered. There were _people_ here, throngs of courtiers and commoners with their busy minds, constantly crowding around. There were memories here that he did not like. Lava was unpleasant in its obvious ways, and there were bad memories on Mustafar too, but Vader had grown accustomed to Fortress Vader and its burning solitude. It was peace of a sort, being alone with his pain, and he had learned to draw strength from it. Could he draw strength from Coruscant, from its crowds and its chaos, in the same way? He didn't know if he wanted to.

But, of course, one of the people here was Tarkin. It took the better part of a day to fly between Mustafar and Coruscant, even in the fastest ships, and Vader and Tarkin were both busy people. They'd never been able to visit as much as they wanted. That could change, now, if Vader was willing to try.

"I will travel too frequently to stay full-time in any one place," Vader said, making his decision. "But my quarters on Coruscant should allow me to stay here whenever I choose, for any length of time, and have my needs met fully. See that it is done."

Leffe nodded. "Of course, my lord. Now, there are aspects of Fortress Vader that I don't see a need to replicate here. The Imperial Palace already has its own power generation, servants' quarters, guest rooms and so on. But I'm unsure if you'll want any of its other facilities for your private use. The training room-"

"I will require a training room," Vader interjected. When he wasn't on a mission or in full-time medical treatment, he did combat training for at least an hour each day. Cease to do so and he'd lose his edge, like an out-of-practice athlete: he'd never not be strong in the Force, but he'd grow less adept at using the strength he had. Not to mention that his training routines also included physiotherapy. "I want a private workshop suitably outfitted for the modification of personal vehicles and droids. And I want my own hangar, or my own section of the existing hangars. The rest, you may dispense with."

Vader had a small collection of heavily modded airspeeders, and when his duties allowed, he sometimes went on death-defying joyrides across Mustafar's lava crags. Coruscant presented challenges for a pilot that Mustafar did not. What would the common people think of an emperor who careened out of the Imperial Palace in a souped-up speeder and ran loops around the traffic lanes for the thrill of it? Maybe they'd find it comical. Maybe they'd find new ways to fear him. The mental image cheered him, either way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting with the Joint Chiefs brings an unpleasant revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: "Realistically there should be political intrigue here but I'm bored by it and wouldn't know how to write it anyway. This is really more a story about Vader's internal journey, the intergenerational cycle of abuse, and some weird magic-"
> 
> me: "Eh well I guess I should at least figure out the names of some people who would and wouldn't be loyal to Vader and Tarkin's government in this scenario. Because they'd be concerned about who's loyal to them, at least."
> 
> me: *peeks into Wookieepedia*
> 
> me, days later, holding a big ol' stack of notes: "ALL RIGHT FUCKERS HERE'S YOUR INTRIGUE"

The morning wore on. There were all sorts of palace staff who needed to know, in exhaustive detail, just what Emperor Vader wanted of them. Vader was starting to understand why Palpatine had become so reclusive as he aged. This was almost too much to deal with. Yet there was something good about it, too. Vader didn't mind having people so keenly fixed on him, so anxious to please.

When the servants were done, they moved to a conference room for the meeting with the Joint Chiefs. This was grander than the Death Star's conference room, blacker and more spread out, but the design was essentially the same. Vader had attended plenty of _these_ meetings before.

The Death Star fiasco had killed at least half of the prior Joint Chiefs. Many of the faces who filed in now were new to Vader, but he recognized enough. Grand General Tagge, with his long brushy sideburns, representing the Imperial Army. Vader's own Admiral Ozzel, one of several representing the Navy. Moff Jerjerrod, representing COMPNOR. And others, some known to Vader and some not. Alba Nemeus was here too, taking notes on a datapad for Tarkin's later perusal. Everybody made their genuflections, but they were brisk about it.

Vader remained standing, as was his custom in rooms of this type; the chairs could not be trusted to hold his weight. He was starting to feel dizzy and to have a headache again, but it was at a manageable level, much better than what he'd felt at the coronation. The twenty-four hours of sleep had done him good, it seemed. He hadn't even needed a stimulant yet.

"At the moment," said Tarkin, as Nemeus projected a hologram map of the galaxy over the table, "the Empire faces threats on multiple fronts. First, there are four known traitor factions willing to use military force to promote their own, invalid claimants to the throne. Three of these are known to us because they attempted battle in the capital immediately after Emperor Palpatine's death. These are Mas Amedda's, Moff Pandion's, and Grand General Loring's." Nemeus flicked a button and the map animated itself, zooming in on the space immediately around Coruscant. Three small territories lit up in three colors and were quickly decimated, moving offworld. "As you can see, their attempts to take territory in the Imperial Center failed. Neither of the three has formally acceded, but to our knowledge none has gained a territorial foothold elsewhere. They exist merely as fleets hiding somewhere in the Core Region."

"That could change at any moment, of course," said Ozzel.

Tarkin waved him away. "Of course. We're pursuing them actively. The fourth traitor faction is more puzzling. This one hasn't named a putative Emperor, but we're calling them Admiral Rax's faction for simplicity. They have at least some small fleet, and they've publicly stated their opposition to our rule. But so far they've neither attacked nor even approached Imperial territory. Instead the communications we've intercepted from them are either from, or en route to, the Unknown Regions." The hologram map shifted again, highlighting a vaguer, blurrier area at the galaxy's edge.

"That is where the old Ruling Council went," Vader interrupted. He could feel it.

Tarkin glanced at him, mildly surprised. "Yes, actually."

"At least five very important men, along with the Admiral. No one managed to stop them or to trace their passage?"

"You are aware it was a chaotic time, my lord," said Tagge. His tone was not placating, but scornful. Tagge had never had a high opinion of Vader's intelligence; neither had many in Imperial High Command. Vader might have to put a stop to that, now that he was Emperor. But he wanted to sort this out first. "There was the small matter of the three invading armies to deal with. We did capture one member of the Council who'd attempted to escape - Sim Aloo. But before he could be interrogated he committed suicide in custody."

Tarkin looked sideways at both of them. "Vader, do you know what they could be planning out there?"

"No. But it is to do with Emperor Palpatine. It stinks of him. There are outposts in the Unknown Regions, observatories where he kept secret artifacts of the Dark Side. I know of two, but there may be more. It would be like him to hide them from me." Vader stepped closer to the hologram map and jabbed at it with his finger, listing off two sets of coordinates. "There and there. That is where you should begin your search."

Inwardly, he was disturbed. Palpatine had always insisted that he planned not to die. If he did die, he'd professed not to care what happened afterwards. Yet an effort like this, by the whole Ruling Council, must have been coordinated ahead of time. Had they known something Vader didn't? Had Palpatine had some secret plan, after all? Or, disdaining Vader and wanting power for themselves, was the council simply taking advantage of what Palpatine left behind?

Moff Jerjerrod leaned forward in fascination. "What exactly is kept at these outposts, my lord? Weapons?"

"Not the way you mean. Not like Hethea 1. The ones I am aware of are ceremonial objects, historical artifacts, and doctrinal writings. Some possess destructive power, but not the kind that could turn the tide of a war. If there are more, however..."

There was an appropriately dramatic pause, and then Tarkin cleared his throat. "Aside from the traitor factions, there are several additional threats. The Rebel Alliance has been active; they've focused on several minor worlds in the Outer Rim and Expansion Region which already had strong local independence movements and weak Imperial oversight. On two of these worlds - Lothal and Pantora - they've gone so far as to declare independence." The hologram highlighted half a dozen planets, then zoomed in to focus on the mentioned pair. "Meanwhile, there have been movements in Hutt Space suggesting that they and other autonomous sectors may use the opportunity to expand as well. The Empire is far stronger than any of these challengers individually, but each has the agility associated with small size and can choose freely the weak points they wish to attack. We risk being nibbled to death if we don't allocate our resources wisely. Thoughts, Vader?"

Being prompted for his preferences in all the small matters of the palace had exhausted Vader, but _this_ felt good. Vader was familiar with leading campaigns, and it was a relief, knowing no one stood higher than him to supersede his command.

"Have the two Force-sensitive operatives among the Rebels been found?" he asked.

The man who spoke up in response to this was one Vader didn't know, gaunt and dark, bearing the rank insignia of an admiral. "I assume you mean Princess Leia Organa, my lord, and the unknown pilot who fired the final shots on the Death Star."

"Of course I mean them," said Vader impatiently.

"Military Intelligence has been searching for them both, my lord," said the man. This was Wullf Yularen's successor as head of Intelligence, then. "Along with many other high-profile Rebel targets, and the base itself. So far we've seen no sign, but we suspect that if Lothal and Pantora retain their independence for long, the Rebels will show themselves more openly there."

"See that they are found," said Vader. How nice to command the Empires' entire intelligence apparatus, instead of merely Death Squadron and whatever external resources he could scrape together. "Inform me immediately of any sighting."

"As you wish, my lord."

"These operatives are strong in the Force, but untrained," Vader continued. "They must be dealt with, but the most urgent threat is Admiral Rax's faction. We must find what they are looking for in the Unknown Regions and prevent them from obtaining it at any cost."

There was a small stir at that. The rest of the Joint Chiefs had clearly seen the situation differently.

"My lord, we don't know that they have any resources aside from a few ships," Tagge pointed out. "And the locations of some artifacts that even you describe as unimportant. They're out in poorly charted territory on what may well be a mystical fool's errand, while meanwhile we face real military threats at home. Surely enemies who are better equipped and closer to important territory should be our first priority."

"Do not underestimate the old Ruling Council," said Vader, pointing at him. "They learned at Emperor Palpatine's feet as I did."

"With respect, my lord, that's not the same as having military experience," said Tagge. "If the Death Star fiasco taught us anything, it's that we cannot bank everything on one extravagant plan, and neither can they. We need to keep our focus on more concrete data."

Vader felt Tarkin's temper abruptly rise at that comment. It hadn't been long since the Death Star, and Vader held himself partly responsible for that failure. If he'd been only a little bit quicker as he chased that gifted pilot down the trench. If he hadn't suggested releasing and tracking the Princess so as to find the Rebel base...

"What _concrete data,_ " Tarkin snapped, "could possibly have told you that a mere _X-Wing-_ "

"Grand General Tagge," Vader interrupted, cutting them both off. He stepped closer to the general. He'd felt a flicker of something in Tagge's mind for a moment. Something worse than mere contempt. " _Why_ are you so intent on not pursuing Rax's faction?"

Tagge bristled. "It's as I just explained, my lord. They pose a speculative threat, if any, and meanwhile our fleet needs to be positioned to deal with-"

His voice broke off into a panicked groan of pain. He doubled over and clutched, not at his throat, but at his forehead, as Vader's mind pressed invasively into his.

"You have seen my powers demonstrated before," said Vader coldly. "You ought to know better than to lie."

Vader did not like mind probes. They hurt both the giver and the recipient, and they had unpleasant psychic aftereffects. And although sleep had improved him, he was still weak today. But there were things he liked less than he liked mind probes. Betrayal was one. He looked as deeply in as he dared, hoping it would not take long. He already felt enough to suspect what was happening here. Tagge's contempt for both of his actual Emperors. His comparative reverence for Palpatine. And, around Rax and the Ruling Council, some feeling of... defensiveness.

"When was your last contact with the old Ruling Council?" Vader asked. "What did they promise you, in exchange for your convincing the Joint Chiefs to turn a blind eye to their work?"

"I... don't know... what you're talking about," Tagge grunted through his teeth, but it was a lie.

The whole room was watching with great alarm. Many of them had never seen a mind probe before. Tarkin sat poised and wary, ready to intervene if necessary. Jerjerrod had gone pale. Vader ignored them all. He wasn't at his full strength, but he could see enough. The shadows and remembered voices of the Ruling Council, their smugness, their careful assurances.

"You ensured they could escape from the capital," he accused. "You arranged Sim Aloo's death. You promised that our forces would fail to pursue them while they did their work."

"That's - not -" Tagge lied. Vader pushed impatiently further into his mind.

Yet there was little enough here to grab on to, aside from those three crimes he'd already listed. There were limits to Tagge's crimes, and to his knowledge. The Ruling Council had not been foolish enough to tell him much. Tagge did not know precisely where they had gone, or what they were looking for. He did not know the end goal. He knew only that Palpatine had a plan for the Empire after his death that did _not_ involve Vader or Tarkin. The Ruling Council claimed that, with time, they could find some way to fulfil it.

"They did not even have to promise you anything," Vader realized aloud. "You were _eager._ "

"And why should I not have been?" Tagge growled - and the whole rest of the room drew back.

Sometimes, facing Vader's interrogations, people broke this way. Not mewling and begging in their agony, but angry, spitting it all out with the greatest possible drama. They knew they could not hide the truth forever, so they would tell it on their own terms. They would tell him everything, including their reasons, their hate for him, their anger, and he would feel that it was true. And then, perhaps, he'd be provoked to kill them quickly.

Vader had some minor respect for the ones who broke that way. There was a dignity to it, and it was faster than having to wrest every detail out by force. He didn't mind giving them the deaths they craved.

"Palpatine's Empire was based on order," Tagge insisted. "On _results._ He never named you heir. You were his weapon, a mere destructive instrument kept at his feet. You know nothing about how to rule, and your own command has failed again and again. An Empire with someone like you at its helm is illegitimate; it will fall apart at its seams. And your lover here is hardly better." He gestured dismissively to Tarkin. "We all know _his_ failures. But he sees your naivete and your craving for a power you can't hold, and he thinks that by bending and spreading for you he can control-"

That was where Tagge stopped, because his throat closed. Tarkin had already stood up out of his chair in a fury, but Vader was faster. There was no sound in the room, for a minute or two, but the sound of Tagge's useless fight for breath.

Tarkin did not stop him, he noted. Tarkin could have chided him to wait longer, to make sure he'd dragged every bit of information from Tagge's mind that he could. But Vader knew everything he needed to. Maybe Tarkin trusted him to make that judgment, or maybe Tarkin simply shared his rage.

Vader was Palpatine's rightful heir. Of _course_ a Sith apprentice was his master's rightful heir. That was the _point_ of it all. But Palpatine hadn't simply failed to name Vader as his successor officially. Palpatine had let Vader believe he was his heir, at the same time as telling other people, people he liked better, that he obviously was not. There was no afterlife for Sith, and Palpatine had said he did not care what would happen if he died. But he had made plans, made _recruitments,_ just to get back at Vader from beyond the grave. Tagge was only one such recruitment. There would be others, Vader was sure.

There was no afterlife for Sith - that was what Vader had been taught, that was what he _believed_ \- but there was that presence in Vader's dreams, reaching for him, the one that felt just a little too much like his master.

He watched as Tagge's body slumped down against the conference room's table. He felt as the life left it.

"Get me another general," Vader growled.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two emperors share a quiet moment after their morning of meetings, and Tarkin lets Vader know he's summoned somebody back from the Maw. Feelings occur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember in "Holding Vader's Leash" when Tarkin was lowkey jealous of all Vader's other partners but decided he could tolerate it, and then they literally never discussed any of it directly, ever, because they are MASSIVE TRASHFIRES WHO CANNOT COMMUNICATE? Yeah. We all knew that was coming back to bite them both.

There wasn't much left to the meeting, aside from people hastily agreeing to take the threat posed by Rax's faction more seriously. When it was over, Tarkin guided Vader out, flanked by Royal Guards, to the Imperial Suite. This was a cluster of rooms for the Emperor's personal use, and Vader had been in it before: mostly in the outermost of the chambers, a sitting room where Palpatine had entertained friends and close allies. Unlike the black foreboding halls where official palace business happened, this place was deceptively pretty, an understated wash of seafoam and indigo, set with soft couches and tasteful knick-knacks on little tables, like one of Palpatine's offices in the time of the Republic. It was a double deception: the people who had Palpatine's favor thought they'd made it through the necessary severity of the throne room to something more pleasant, to the private space where Palpatine could still be his old, kindly, human self. In fact, it was his kindliness that was the mask.

Vader had never been in the Imperial Suite's innermost rooms, the ones where Palpatine dressed and slept. He didn't know if there was a third layer to the deception, if those rooms perhaps reverted back to dark. Or something worse. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

In any case, Tarkin stopped in the sitting room, gesturing Vader to one of the newer armchairs and dismissing the guards. Vader sat down heavily. This armchair, too, was reinforced properly for his weight. Maybe all of them were, or maybe this chair specifically belonged to Vader now.

Vader felt ill. The mind probe had taken more out of him than it ought to. As usual after a probe, he had bits of Tagge's mind invisibly splattered all over him now. He had never liked Tagge's mind. It was the opposite of Vader's in many respects. Dull, not with lack of intellect but with excessive concern for the dullest things. Smug and content with itself. And it was a mind that held Vader in no more esteem than an attack dog. The remnants of Tagge's mental energy that had stayed with Vader were no more alive than the rest of Tagge's corpse, and they had no power, but they _nagged_ at him, like an itch. These things could be washed away, but only by deep meditation, physical exercise, distractions, time.

"Well," said Tarkin. He didn't feel happy to Vader's senses, either. "That's that for the morning, then. And not a moment too soon. You're tired, aren't you?"

Vader didn't look up at him. "As you say."

"That's my own fault. I thought the Joint Chiefs meeting would be largely formalities and getting you up to speed. I didn't anticipate it being so eventful."

"Would you rather we had not uncovered the traitor?"

Tarkin paused. "Point. But Emfour's going to murder me for it regardless. Let's have you rest here for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing else strenuous."

Vader wondered how Tarkin could promise a lack of stressors when he hadn't predicted the last one, but he didn't argue. "As you wish."

Tarkin settled down into the armchair beside Vader's. He made a small noise, nearly inaudible, as his body relaxed into the fabric. Tarkin wasn't injured like Vader, but he had been working at new and very challenging tasks nearly nonstop for the past few weeks. He was tired, too.

A serving droid rolled in with a tray of refreshments for them both. It had somehow obtained the correct noontime items from Vader's quarters, wherever those were now. A bulbous meal pack designed to slot into a hidden port in his suit, the corresponding rectangular container of fluids, and the correct assortment of smaller medicine packs for noontime on this particular day. For Tarkin there were a couple of small, precise sandwiches and a cup of hot tea.

Vader took the first of the medicine packs, pushed the outer fabrics of his suit aside, and clicked it into place. It was routine now, doing this sort of thing in front of Tarkin. No other human in the galaxy would have been allowed to see it. Humans had to be involved to keep him stocked with his necessities, of course, but the interfaces between the organic and mechanical parts of his body embarrassed Vader. Better for the rank and file to think him all machine.

"Do you really think," said Tarkin, staring into his teacup, "that Palpatine had some plan we don't know about?"

"Yes," said Vader sourly. Of course Palpatine had plans; of course no one knew all of them. He knew what Tarkin meant, the true question that lurked under the ridiculously obvious words, but he didn't know how to answer that one.

"It doesn't make sense. If he'd wanted a different heir, he could have _named_ one."

"You knew my master. Do you expect him to make sense?"

Tarkin made a short, derisive noise, and then drained the teacup entirely.

"It's... good, having you here," Tarkin said presently. Vader had moved on to his nutrient pack, letting the bulb click into place and slowly do its feeding work. There was no real pleasure in this process, and no taste, but his belly still liked being full more than it liked the alternative. "Perhaps it was selfish of me. But it's good."

Vader could feel the truth of that. The way it calmed Tarkin to have Vader's looming strength at his side. Tarkin wanted Vader, not just carnally but with his whole being. Vader's rhythmic breath in his ears. Vader's gloved hand in his own.

He loved the way Tarkin looked at him. Most people feared Vader; some, like Tagge, felt disgust. Some - few, but not as few as one would think - lusted for him. Some found his powers exotic, intriguing. Some pitied him or worshiped him from afar. But, alone of everyone else in the galaxy, Tarkin looked at Vader and saw a real person, both in the good ways and the bad. A colleague he'd grown to respect, at first, despite their bickering. And then a friend.

And then - it had become so much more.

"I should return home soon," Vader said. "If only to prevent Emfour from attempting treason. But it is good. Being here."

Tarkin's mouth quirked into a half-smile. "I can tell you're tired. You've been here all morning, and you haven't demanded sex."

Vader was amused. He'd always been cursed with a high sex drive, which was especially inconvenient given his disabilities. Just as he could no longer breathe without help or eat regular food, Vader also could not satisfy himself in the normal way. Fortunately, though, he had the Force. Vader could visit all sorts of pleasure and pain on a partner without even touching them, and he could psychically share their enjoyment as vividly as if it was his own. It was an addictive process, and a cathartic one, and he was often aggressive about it, especially with a partner like Tarkin. Someone who wanted him keenly, and who knew what he liked.

He could still do it, even tired and covered in Tagge. He liked the sight of Tarkin in those robes enough. Mainly there just hadn't been _time_. He'd at least have to finish his nutrients first.

But Vader was also still thinking, in the back of his mind, about Tagge's last words. _He sees your naivete and your craving for a power you can't hold. He thinks he can control you._

It was not accurate, of course. Vader could read minds, and he _knew_ Tarkin wasn't only fucking him for power. Tarkin loved him. It had taken Vader a while to trust it, to work out if he returned it or not, to stop fearing it would go away as soon as he moved wrong. But Tarkin's love was as plain as what Vader could see with his eyes. It was real, and it had been there for a long time.

Like all the insults that stung the worst, though, Tagge's words held a grain of truth. Tarkin loved Vader, but he knew very well how it worked, leveraging relationships for power. Tarkin had married his ex-wife for power, and he'd let other ambitious lovers climb him like a ladder to the top. He'd been brought up that way; he didn't think it was wrong. Vader's power had always been one of the things about him that Tarkin liked. Now Tarkin had become something Vader needed, and in return, Vader had given him the whole galaxy.

So now there were two things, not one, keeping Tarkin with Vader. His heart kept him here, but so did a cold practical need to hold on to the power he'd earned. For now, it didn't matter which of those urges was which, because both of them pulled in the same direction. But someday, perhaps, they would not.

Vader didn't know what either of them would do when that happened. He'd been consumed with the need to rid himself of his master at any cost. Every other part of the plan was secondary. Life would go on after Palpatine was gone, but he hadn't truly been able to imagine it, not in any of the crowd-placating, schedule-making, room-designing, traitor-finding details that were now apparent. It had all been a strange, hopeful, terrifying blank. He hadn't even been able to formulate this question before. What happened if loving Vader was a means to an end?

It was all a lot to think about, and he still felt sick.

"Are you feeling deprived?" he asked, teasing. Deflecting.

He felt Tarkin's mind doing something very carefully. Feeling a desire, but reining it in. "Not urgently. But I did miss you."

Vader moved a couple of fingers slightly against his armrest, producing a whisper of Force-sensation against Tarkin's face. Pulling him closer, if only by a centimeter. "It seems our roles are reversed. I have not been awake long, but for you it has been weeks. Perhaps I will be the one to tease you, to make you wait, this time."

Tarkin smiled, but pulled himself away. He interpreted Vader's slowness as reluctance, and he wouldn't push. He looked down at his sandwiches, which were still untouched.

"For the first week," he confessed, "I wasn't even sure you were going to live. Even after Emfour got you in your tank. It was... bad."

Vader did not know what to do with such an admission. He busied himself detaching the nutrient bulb, which had clicked to a stop, and replacing it with the fluid pack. Vader did not deal well with threats to his loved ones; he had trouble imagining what Tarkin must have done to cope. He didn't know how to respond, except with a matching admission of his own.

"This place," said Vader, looking around the deceptively soft parlor, "still stinks of my master. It is hard to believe he is gone. I keep looking around at rooms like this, fearing I will see him."

Tarkin picked up a sandwich and considered it speculatively. "That's not unexpected. Do you know what I'd recommend? Once you get home and have rested enough to please Emfour, try going through the rooms of your fortress. Not all at once, don't overwhelm yourself, just one detail at a time. And ask yourself: which details do you like? Which don't you? You've always had things in that fortress that were just for you, no matter how your master discouraged it. The workshop, for instance. You'll look at the details, and some will please you that way. Others won't, whether it's because Palpatine put them there, or for whatever other reason. You'll find those things, and then you'll give the order to change them. And you'll find that you can give that order now. That will help. All you need is practice and some time to settle in."

Vader looked down at the specially reinforced armchair he sat in. "Is that what you have been doing here?"

"Not to the same extent. But when you're done at Fortress Vader, you'd be welcome to come back and do the same thing here. Rip everything out that reminds you of him and start fresh. You could take all the nice upholstery out of this room and do it all up in those ridiculous reds and blacks of yours, and if that was what you truly wanted, I wouldn't mind."

Vader finished his fluids in silence. Fluids were the most intense of the three types of intake. His body craved them, especially if he'd been moving vigorously or healing from something. But the pressurized, mechanical form in which they entered his throat made for strange sensations. Sometimes it felt like heartburn. Sometimes it felt like standing, mouth open, under a waterfall.

By the terms of their deal, Tarkin didn't have to involve Vader so deeply in palace decisions, or decisions at all, unless Vader happened to ask. But Tarkin had deliberately spent the morning going out of his way to show Vader that Vader, too, was a real emperor in his eyes. That he intended to share the power fairly and to the best of his own ability. It wasn't what Vader had asked for, but it was a gesture of trust and respect, and he couldn't begrudge it.

"Vader," said Tarkin at last, "there's one more thing I should tell you. On the topic of fixing those little bits of the old order we didn't like."

Vader paused. There was something careful and hesitant in Tarkin's mind now. "Yes?"

"Do you remember when I told you about Admiral Daala?"

"I do," Vader said. That scandal had happened a while before Vader and Tarkin got together. Tarkin had taken interest in a brilliant young cadet in the Imperial Navy, and had claimed her both as his protégé and as his secret lover. Nepotism of various kinds was commonplace in the Empire; most high officials had gotten their positions in whole or in part through family. But there were unspoken rules as to the degree of nepotism allowed, and the kinds of relationships that allowed it, and who was allowed to partake in its benefits. Tarkin's relationship with Daala, as her commanding officer, had been a questionable conflict of interest even by Imperial standards, and he had been overzealous raising her through the ranks - even making her the Empire's first female admiral. Eventually someone had complained. Facing the possibility of a public inquiry into his abuse of power, Tarkin had hidden Daala away by reassigning her to a top-secret project, so faraway and heavily classified that not even the Senate could find it. Unfortunately that meant _he_ couldn't get to her either, or at least not frequently enough to continue their relationship.

"I'm calling her back from her assignment at the Maw Installation," Tarkin said. "Hding her there was the best I could do under the circumstances; it prevented other authorities from taking away what I'd given her. But she didn't want to go. Now that we're emperors, there _is_ no authority higher than mine, so I refuse to leave her out there any longer. I don't know where things will stand when she returns; it's been three years, after all. But she is, in fact, returning. The _Gorgon_ will reach orbit around Coruscant this evening. If you stayed around that long, you could meet her."

Vader went completely still. He did not understand the strength of the rage that had passed over him.

Vader's old self had been fiercely monogamous; the prospect of his wife's old lover returning had provoked him to the point of violence. But that had been a long time ago, and he was no longer that man. When he'd discovered kink, he had still been grieving; it had been easier to believe his heart was dead now. Easier to satisfy himself with casual encounters, which were plentiful in the kink community, even for partnered people. Even later, after realizing he was in love with Tarkin, he'd never fully gotten out of that habit. Tarkin didn't expect monogamy of him, after all, and sometimes there were long weeks or months when he wasn't around. Vader couldn't get off by himself; he needed a willing partner and the Force. And there were plenty of submissives near Mustafar who wanted to be Force-ravished by a scary Dark Lord of the Sith. It was habit. It was easy. If Tarkin wanted to fuck someone else, after all the things Vader had done, he could hardly complain.

But he knew the story of Tarkin and Admiral Daala, and he knew that this wasn't some casual thing. This was someone else Tarkin loved, as much as he loved Vader. They'd be having all those feelings right in front of him, in all their most intense gradations, right away. Vader had _never_ done a thing like that.

He felt sick. He did not know what to say.

"Vader, I don't intend for this to change anything between us," Tarkin said, watching him carefully. "Even if she still wants me, Admiral Daala won't make me love you less or have less time for you. We're co-Emperors, and that comes first, both for obvious practical reasons and because I want it to. She'll simply fulfil a different set of needs."

Vader turned his head. "I have not fulfilled all your needs, then."

He didn't know what Admiral Daala looked like, but presumably she wasn't encased in a suit like him. She still had all her limbs, and hair, and skin that wasn't a mass of burn scars. She could kiss properly. She could offer her body up fully without needing intensive medical intervention to do so. No wonder Tarkin was so eager to bring her back.

"Don't be ridiculous," Tarkin snapped. "That's not how it works. You still have your other submissives. Does that mean I've failed to fulfil you?"

"Yes," Vader blurted.

Tarkin stared at him, disturbed. He had clearly not expected that answer. Vader hadn't even expected to say it, really.

"You have been busy," said Vader. "Even when you rearranged your schedule for me, there was so much time without you. You warned me it would be that way. So I have adapted. But I love only you. If we were always together as I have wished we were, I would need no one else. I thought you felt the same."

"Oh," said Tarkin. He frowned to himself, looking away. "That's funny; I thought _you_ were the one for whom monogamy wasn't an option. Clearly I misjudged.”

“You misjudged _deeply._ ”

Tarkin worked his jaw. He was angry, but he knew better than to provoke Vader about this, it seemed. "Fine. It's my fault for assuming we could have an open relationship without talking in detail about what that meant. At any rate, she's on her way. I meant what I said, Vader. You and I are co-Emperors, and that comes first. When she arrives, should I tell her it's over?"

Vader could feel what it cost for Tarkin to make the offer. He could tell that Tarkin did not want to; he also felt that Tarkin meant every word. If Vader told him not to be with Admiral Daala, he wouldn't be with her. Vader wanted, very badly, to say _yes._

But Vader knew what it meant for a love to be forbidden. Even if Tarkin kept scrupulously to the agreement, he'd still feel what he felt. This Daala person might still feel the same, too. She'd had Tarkin before Vader did. They'd both resent him for interfering, and Vader would feel it all every time he saw them. That would be a torment even worse than the affair itself.

"No,” he said stiffly. “I will not ask that of you."

He was not too far gone to notice the subtle unclenching of Tarkin’s shoulders in relief.

"Can I make it up to you?" Tarkin asked, slipping out of his chair and stepping closer. "It's not simply a binary, allowing everything or nothing. There are other sorts of rules you can set if it would make you more comfortable. We should discuss that later, when you've rested."

Vader waved a gloved hand vaguely. "Fine."

Tarkin was standing in front of him now. He reached up and lightly cupped the side of Vader's mask in his hand. This in itself was a kind of contact Vader would never have allowed from anyone but Tarkin, a tenderness he still scarcely knew what to do with some days.

"I hope you don't have the wrong idea," said Tarkin. "I do love you. I've watched you all morning, the way you're growing into your new role. It's taken growth for you to be capable of this in the first place, and there is no idea more exciting to me than to watch that continue. To have you at my side through it all. You've given me the whole galaxy and asked so little in return, and I _want_ to repay you. I want to give you everything."

Vader stood up out of his chair. He took Tarkin by the waist and pulled him close, the strong metal of his hands contracting possessively around Tarkin's thin body. "Is that a promise?"

"Yes."

"Then what will you give me, here? Now?"

Tarkin smiled slightly. "What about pleasure, to begin with? We haven't done that since before we were emperors. I could follow your orders for an hour or so. Would you like that?"

As if to emphasize the offer, he pulled lightly out of Vader's grasp and sank to one knee.

Tarkin liked pain; he liked being at Vader's mercy, proving to himself that he could endure the torments Vader devised. But he wasn't a true submissive. Showing deference, being obedient by choice, were not his kinks. Vader did like them, and Tarkin's dislike wasn't strong, so sometimes he offered them anyway, as a treat, knowing Vader would make it worth his while. It was a transparent trick to offer them now. To placate him. Very nearly the kind of trick Tagge had accused him of, and it might have worked.

But Tarkin wasn't only offering pleasure. Tarkin was kneeling to him, _here,_ in this room that still psychically stank of Palpatine. And all at once a piece of Vader's mind snapped painfully back into place. One of the parts that had felt cloudy and missing since he woke up in his tank. His fists and stomach clenched. He understood, all too deeply, what this was.

Vader was no longer the Emperor's heir. Vader was the Emperor. He wouldn't have to kneel anymore. He would be the one people had to kneel for.

But also: Vader was no longer a Sith apprentice. Vader had done what every Sith apprentice, in the end, was meant to do. He had destroyed his master. And that meant - inevitably, by the Sith's most involiable laws - that Vader _was_ the master now. He would never again have to crouch in agony, here or in his fortress or in that black throne room, subject to Palpatine's vicious punishments for the smallest failure. He would never do those things again - because he was the master, now, and he would be the one who had to give the punishments.

That was why it made him feel so strange and sick and frightened when people knelt to him now. Palpatine had inducted him into a tradition that was larger than either of them. And Vader hadn't freed himself, not fully. Even if it was against his master's will, even if Palpatine had considered him unworthy to take it, he had still only taken the role that Palpatine prepared him for. The role that Palpatine had occupied, before him.

He had become the one thing, in all the universe, even worse than what he was before.

What had he done?

It was too late to take it back. He felt that in the weight of the palace around him, in the servants' wary deference, even the mistaken way Tarkin admired him. The trap had already snapped shut around him, and he'd spent this whole time digging himself further in, establishing himself as a ruler. He'd thought that he wanted it. _Tarkin_ had thought that he wanted it. Every bit of Sith doctrine had told him he would, and until it was too late, he'd believed.

And soon it might be even worse. That presence from his dream was still out there, lying in wait to take what little freedom Vader had. If it didn't get him, Admiral Rax's faction might. Tarkin might abandon him. Even this awful, hollow victory might not be one Vader could keep.

 _You will never be free,_ whispered something in the back of his mind.

He stumbled backwards.

Tarkin looked at him in alarm. "Or we could do something else," he amended. "What's the matter now?"

Vader did not think it was possible to explain. Tarkin _liked_ ruling. Tarkin would not understand the horror of this, even if Vader blurted it all out right now. He did not want to try.

But he did want Tarkin. And there was one thing he could do in this room that Palpatine would never have.

He held out a hand and raised Tarkin up off his knees. Pushed him up against the wall, royal robes and cape and circlet and all. Tarkin inhaled sharply, but gave himself up to it, as Vader's telekinetic grasp clamped down and held him helpless there. He liked this. He _had_ missed Vader; he liked it even more than his usual.

"You will not kneel to me," said Vader. "Not in this palace. Not ever. But I have other uses for you, my toy."

This was a dance they both knew well. Vader stripped Tarkin's finery roughly away. He lashed at his body with invisible claws. Tarkin egged him on, provoking and defiant, even as his breath sped and small moans interrupted his words. Vader did not touch him, but there were other forms of pain, hard slaps, lines of something like flame. He let it build.

Tarkin liked pain, and there was a pleasure that built for him, a craving for more. Vader could feel it as keenly as he felt his other senses, his sight and his hearing. When it was strong enough, he Force-pushed Tarkin's legs apart and did what he liked between them, losing himself in the mixed sensations. _That_ built too, in the midst of the pain, to a blinding peak. 

When he was finished, Vader looked down at Tarkin's body, bare and spent and catching its breath. At some point Vader had grown tired of the wall and had thrown him to the carpeted floor, and that was where he lay now for the moment. Vader had caused no injury. Force-pain was all illusion, even if the body's response to it was real; when it was over, it vanished completely. Nothing had touched Vader's body, not even through his suit, but the secondhand afterglow relaxed him as it always did. He was calmer now. He could think.

He was not free, but this was not so bad. At least _this_ Emperor could be put in his place, naked and trembling before him. At least this one cared slightly what Vader thought. Vader and Tarkin had faced worse horrors and done worse crimes together. If they had each other, then they could live with this, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew! these last few chapters all happened kinda fast. chapter 6 may be one of the ones I warned you about where it takes a bit longer. I actually have several more chapters, like, vaguely drafted but they need additional work and research before I can put them up for reals. process is weird.
> 
> comments are, as ever, love <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admiral Daala returns to Coruscant after three years away and is flummoxed by what she finds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout-out to the anon who commented on "People Are Beginning To Talk" asking if there would be a daala chapter. there totally is but it's here instead of there! yay
> 
> also shout-out to the 219583 mistakes i have made in translating this character over from legends, many of which were intentional
> 
> annnnd shout-out to the increased predicted chapter count
> 
> really i am just shouting at everything.

Natasi Daala could not remember a time in her adult life when that life had not revolved around Wilhuff Tarkin. She'd hero-worshiped him as a teenage cadet, watching and re-watching the holonet interviews in which he articulated his Tarkin Doctrine. _Rule, not through force, but through the fear of force._ She'd applied that principle throughout her studies, fascinated with its power. She'd been delighted and terrified when she caught his attention for real. He'd taught her most of what she knew that was worth knowing. He'd been her first and favorite lover. Even after he sent her unwillingly out to the Maw Installation, she'd kept herself going with the thought of him. She'd kept the workers on track and the troops drilled to perfection because Tarkin would expect no less when he came back.

_If_ he came back.

Now, finally, he'd sent a missive to that hidden black hole cluster where she waited for him. Now, finally, Daala was on her way back to civilization.

And she didn't know what the kriff Tarkin thought he was doing.

She'd imagined him coming back to the Maw to inspect her work for himself, but instead the message had been sent with a minor officer on a small, fast cruiser. There was nothing in it but a short holo recording marked for her eyes only, which she'd watched in her quarters before boarding the _Gorgon_. Her heart had leapt when she pressed Play and the image of Tarkin appeared, wearing a set of bizarrely elaborate robes and a glinting circlet, but all he did was briskly order her to the Imperial Palace for further instructions. Tarkin didn't like to be familiar with her unless they were genuinely alone. It was an old habit, formed in the days when secrecy had been necessary, and it had never been broken. But she'd hoped for some small glint of affection in his words.

Still, she had packed her meager belongings and set the _Gorgon_ on a course out of the Maw Cluster immediately.

When the ship emerged into the blackness of proper space, out of the Maw's deadly gravity well, she'd ordered it to pause. Before they entered hyperspace, she'd instructed her comms staff to spend an hour or so sweeping the airwaves. Not making any transmissions, not giving any sign of their presence. Not even slicing into private channels. Just sieving up the public news to get a sense of the current political situation. Daala couldn't be sure just what that strange set of robes meant, but she had her suspicions.

Only after that hour had she sent a terse transmission informing Coruscant that she was en route, then allowed the bridge crew to take her into hyperspace.

She'd spent most of the rest of the journey alone in her quarters. The comms staff had quickly prepared a package of the most relevant broadcasts, and she'd dutifully watched them all. She'd watched one official news clip in particular, over and over again.

Darth Vader, black and imposing, walking out of his Imperial shuttle like he owned the whole palace. Tarkin, in those strange robes, waiting for him unbowed as all others fell to their knees. The way their hands clasped when they reached each other; the look that passed between them. The way Vader gently - how could a man like Darth Vader do anything gently? - took that circlet and raised it to Tarkin's brow.

And the speeches, of course, and the breathless newscaster commentary about what this meant for the galaxy, what their joint rule might look like now that Palpatine was dead. She got the picture. But she kept returning to that one part. Their hands.

Daala was very familiar with the little tells produced by two people in the Imperial hierarchy who were intimately attached to each other. The ones Tarkin had carefully taught her to avoid. The ways two people might keep pace just a little too comfortably as they walked together, the ways eyes met and hands slightly lingered.

The newscasters were circumspect about it. They used phrases like _both Emperors are known to have worked together closely._ But they knew, she suspected. Everyone who mattered must know. This was not the body language of two people trying very hard to hide.

Daala had gotten her hopes up, but Tarkin had already moved on. Somehow, he was with Vader now, and he hadn't even bothered to tell her himself before letting her find out from the news.

She tore herself from the vid screen after the sixth or seventh repeat and went to the fresher to check her appearance. Everybody on the _Gorgon_ knew about her and Tarkin; maybe everybody who was about to greet her on Coruscant did, too. They'd probably all be wondering how she'd react. But that was no reason to show weakness. When she emerged on the surface of Coruscant she would be entirely put-together and correct, not so much as a crease out of place, nothing but rigid professionalism on her face. As always.

She got distracted patting at her hair. When she'd gone into seclusion it had been cropped regulation-short. She'd been vigilant over the years about her uniform, her weight, the rest of her personal grooming, but in her sole act of rebellion, she'd let the hair on her head grow. No cutting edge had touched it since the day she left. It was tied back neatly now, a brilliant coppery-red braid that reached the bottoms of her shoulder blades. Maybe it was too much; maybe Tarkin would think it was a silly indulgence. Maybe he no longer cared what she looked like. Maybe she should have cut it again, but it was too late now.

She checked her face. Daala could keep her face motionlessly stern and composed, a mask of sorts, no matter what was going on inside. She did not flinch. She did not cringe. Tarkin had taught her that, too. She tried not to think about Darth Vader.

Tarkin had always liked Vader; he'd talked about him frequently. It had never occurred to her that they might like each other _that_ way, but it made some amount of sense. It was one of the things that she'd admired about Tarkin, in a way. Here was a man who was unbreakable, near-infinitely strong; even Dark Lords of the Sith didn't scare him.

And just because Tarkin was with Vader now, that didn't necessarily mean he'd lost interest in Daala. He'd been married when they met, after all. If things did work out, then Daala now had the favor of an Emperor. That was obviously good. She ought to be happy.

She didn't want to resent it; that was petty. There were surely more important matters at hand, but some part of her seethed. Daala had built her whole life around what Tarkin wanted. She had pleased him every way she knew how. She had put up with secrecy and scandal and his long, frequent absences. She had gone into exile when he asked. But even now, it seemed, Natasi Daala was still in second place.

*

When the _Gorgon_ emerged from hyperspace, Daala emerged from her quarters, perfectly cool and composed. She watched out the window as the ship found its holding orbit and her shuttle negotiated clearance to land. What a change to see city lights on the face of a properly-sized planet. What a change to see _sunlight._

But she would have to wait longer before she could really experience sun. By the time her shuttle landed, it was after dark. The sky was a luminous indigo, lit by the remnants of the sun just below the horizon, and by Coruscant's usual chaos of artificial illumination.

Tarkin - _Emperor_ Tarkin - waited for her on the landing platform, flanked by two rows of Royal Guards.

He was wearing the same strange robes and circlet she'd seen in his message. They flattered him more in this light, silver-blue and glinting, with the darker half-cape that fell nearly to the floor behind him like the garb of an ancient god. He looked otherwise exactly as she remembered, and she felt an unwilling flutter in her heart at the sight. His clear gaze, his sharp features, fixed on her.

She reached the bottom of the landing ramp, and she sank to one knee, genuflecting properly, her head bowed.

"Admiral Daala," said Tarkin in greeting. He sounded calm and unconcerned. His true feelings could have been anything. But how she'd missed his voice, these last three years. The aristocratic accent. The way he flipped the 'r' in her rank. It was different, hearing his voice in person, than it had been in the news vids. "Welcome back."

"Sir," she acknowledged, without moving at all.

A second later she realized that she'd blurted the wrong honorific. The correct way to address an Emperor was either _my lord_ or _your highness_ , depending on circumstance. But "sir" was what she'd always called him at work. It was what she'd grown to call him even when they were alone, because they both liked it. Tarkin had been the dominant partner in their relationship, and she loved his power.

"Rise," said Tarkin, unruffled. "You're expected in the Imperial Palace, and I'd like to escort you there myself. A great deal has changed in recent weeks, and you'll need to get up to speed quickly. Was your flight pleasant?"

"Pleasant enough, sir." She stood and followed him. He allowed her to walk directly at his side. Daala had never actually been inside the Imperial Palace, and she glanced surreptitiously upwards at its pyramidal walls and high towers as they approached. "I understand there has been a change in command."

Tarkin made a small, amused noise. "That's one way of putting it. Emperor Palpatine died rather suddenly. He was not kind enough to officially designate an heir, but everyone knows Vader was meant to be his successor. And, not being the type with endless patience for meetings and legislation, Emperor Vader saw fit to designate me his co-ruler."

"Yes, sir. I saw the broadcast."

Tarkin smiled slightly. "Did you?"

"I had my crew briefly tune in to the news networks on my way here, sir. It seemed the situation was very different from when I left, and I wanted to arrive informed."

"Good. I trusted you'd be resourceful." They crossed a small bridge from the landing platform towards the palace itself. "I expect a full report on your accomplishments at the Maw as soon as practical. The current situation militarily is not dire, but it is admittedly a bit fractious. I don't suppose you've got any novel superweapons immediately ready for use."

It stung her slightly that he didn't already know. Out of sight, out of mind, she supposed. He could have come by for updates much more frequently if he hadn't been so paranoid. "No, sir. The Sun Crusher project is proceeding on schedule, but it's still six years out from full deployment. Five if we push."

Tarkin's voice was dry. "How nice to hear something's on schedule for a change. If only I'd been able to put you in charge of the Death Star instead of the late Director Krennic."

The _late_ Director? She hadn't been informed he was dead. She didn't feel any sadness at the thought; she hadn't known Krennic well. But she was back from the Maw, of course, and Tarkin's excuses for keeping her a secret there no longer applied. She'd always been jealous of the men who got to work more directly on the Death Star. "Is that position open, sir?"

"Unfortunately not. The Death Star was very briefly operational, but Rebel terrorists destroyed it. There was an undiscovered weakness somewhere in the structure. I had hoped I could show you the battle station personally when it was finished - you would have liked it. But circumstance prevented that."

Daala was so appalled that she nearly faltered. He hadn't just hoped he could show her the Death Star - he'd _promised_ he would. One of the many interests they shared was a love of large-scale, innovative weapons. The doors opened and they crossed into the dark halls of the palace itself, waved forward by another set of guards; she was nearly too distracted to notice. "I don't understand, sir. How could the Rebels discover a weakness so quickly if we didn't know?"

"We're not sure yet. It's suspicious, to say the least. We have analysts looking into the problem." Tarkin looked around at the guards they'd come in with, who were still flanking them officiously as they walked through the halls. "Why are you still here? I can navigate the halls of my own palace."

"My lord," said the nearest guard, "palace protocol-"

"Yes, I thought I made it clear I want that protocol changed. If there is an attacker loose in the palace who might pose some threat to me, then you've already all failed at your jobs. You are dismissed."

The guards reluctantly filed away, leaving Tarkin and Daala alone, side by side.

Daala was beginning to realize what was going on here. There was no reason to dismiss the guards unless he wanted to be alone. But if they were heading to a room where they could be alone, it would have been easier just to head there. _You're expected in the Imperial Palace,_ he'd said. This was a brief, semi-private reprieve before he took her to a room where they would not, in fact, be alone. Where someone else waited.

He was taking her, she realized with a chill, to meet Emperor Vader.

"Well," said Tarkin, who had not broken his stride as they walked briskly through the halls. He glanced at her sideways. "You changed your hair. I like it."

"Thank you, sir." She took a breath, steadying herself. She looked around at the corridor; there was no one else in it now, but that could easily change. Everything in the palace so far looked strange, grand but gloomy. All the surfaces, save for computer displays, were inky black. It was a bit cold. "I... have questions."

"I imagined you would. This way." He turned her down a side corridor. "We've got a few minutes before we're expected. Ask anything."

"You and Emperor Vader," she said, recalling the news clip. "You're... together. The way you were with me."

They came to a stop in front of a round picture window. This, she realized, was a place where they could stand together for quite some time, pretending they were looking out at the city's bustle. He was giving her the time she needed to ask what she needed, and that was a kindness of sorts.

"Not in precisely the same way," said Tarkin. "But close enough, yes. We are in a relationship."

It hurt more intensely than before, hearing it confirmed aloud, but it was a cleaner pain. At least Daala had something concrete to work with. She looked out the window, standing at parade rest. She did not let her face move. "What about you and me, sir?"

"Well, that's up to you. I'm aware that it's been some time, and that we didn't part on the best of terms. I didn't want to presume anything. Your position as an admiral is safe regardless." He cleared his throat softly, raising a hand to his face. To a passerby he wouldn't have looked very nervous, but she'd known Tarkin a long time, and she knew his tells. "But I would still be interested if you were. And Vader would allow it, in theory."

_In theory._ "Is that why you're taking me to meet him, sir?"

"Yes. This is in many ways a different situation than the one you left. Vader and I share a responsibility now for the galaxy itself, and that's our first priority. We're not monogamous; he's had plenty of flings. But if you want to remain involved in the long term then we need to ensure we can all get along. He needs to become used to you and to see that you don't threaten him." Uncharacteristically, he seemed to hesitate a moment. "And there is the reverse to consider. I'm extremely fond of Vader, but he's not the sort of person everyone would want in their private life. You need to see if you can tolerate his presence. Don't decide either way until you've met him."

"Understood, sir." Daala knew from the stories why Vader might be difficult to tolerate. He was cryptic and strange and intimidated people on purpose. He was obsessive when he turned his mind to a project, and he did not tolerate failure. He had magic powers nobody fully understood. He tended to strangle people.

These were reasons to be cautious. The magic, in particular, unnerved her. But if Daala couldn't hold her own around intimidating and uncompromising people - or murderously cruel ones - then she'd never have fallen for Tarkin.

"You've been having your own adventures, I hope," said Tarkin. "Meeting people."

"Here and there, sir. Nothing worth speaking of." She'd tried, very discreetly, dating around at the Maw, but there just wasn't much selection. Nobody there could do it for her the way Tarkin did. She'd gotten good at taking her pleasure alone. "Nothing current."

Tarkin turned towards her, and she mirrored the movement, facing him. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she struggled not to react - it was the first time he'd touched her in three years. It was the first time _anyone_ had touched her in longer than she cared to admit. He had told her not to decide right away, but she couldn't imagine what she was going to have to do if she didn't say yes. If she couldn't press closer to him soon and put her mouth to him like a person starved. Vader be damned. She'd figure out how to deal with Vader.

She did not move.

He was looking at her carefully, searching her expression for something. "You remember, I'm sure, what I've told you about Vader over the years. Do you remember what I said about how I deal with him?"

"Yes, sir." Tarkin had been very proud of his Theory Of Dealing With Vader. She concentrated to ensure she could remember every part before she recited it back. "I remember the rules. Don't let him push you around. Don't show weakness. Be clear about boundaries. If he thinks you're weak, he'll walk all over you. But if he thinks _you_ think _he's_ weak, that's worse. He's worth fearing, but he isn't a mindless monster nor a droid. Treat him as an equal and-" She paused there, slightly flustered. "That's what you said at the time, but he's an Emperor now."

"True. Treat him as a human being with Imperial authority. But you remember the principles." He retracted his hand, apparently satisfied. "There's one other thing, of course, which is the way he reads minds."

"Yes, sir." She knew about that. It was one of the traits that made her uncomfortable; Daala was so used to being able to hide her feelings. A good sabacc face in the right circumstances, particularly for a woman, was armor just as powerful as Vader's.

"That's real," said Tarkin, "but it's not as dramatic as some of the stories say. He can't rifle through your darkest secrets just by looking at you. Rifling takes effort. What _will_ happen just from looking is that he'll get some more general sense of what your mind is like and what direction it's going. If he asks you a question, be forthright; white lies won't impress him."

"Understood, sir."

"He's waiting for us in the Imperial Suite. Do you have any further questions before we head there?"

Daala hesitated. "You said the military situation is fractious, sir."

"Yes. Unfortunately there are several factions which don't recognize Vader's claim to the throne, and some of them have small fleets. Rebels and certain other forces along our borders have taken advantage of the confusion to press for their own goals. It's nothing we can't handle, given time, but we could certainly use all the clever admirals we can get. I'll get you a full briefing tomorrow." He gave her a sidelong look. "Actually, now that I'm Emperor, I'm thinking of promoting you again out of sheer spite. How would you like to be Grand Admiral Daala? There's been a shortage of good Grand Admirals ever since that incident with Thrawn and the purrgils."

Daala blinked, flattered, but unsure if she'd heard correctly. "Purrgils, sir?"

"Never mind. For tonight, I want to focus on getting you settled. Are there further questions regarding Emperor Vader?"

There were many further questions swirling around in Daala's head, but none that it would be useful to voice. Many of them would be most easily answered by going to the room and seeing what happened. Others were simply unsafe. Like the little question that lingered in the back of her mind, the one she hadn't dared to dwell on even in the privacy of her quarters - how _had_ Emperor Palpatine died, exactly? She wasn't ready to think about that one too hard.

"No, sir," she said. "Lead on."

He smiled and began to walk again, and she matched his stride all the way down that cold black hallway, squaring her shoulders. She would not fail him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admiral Daala and Emperor Vader meet each other for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: are we going to address the part where Tarkin is Daala's commanding officer? are we going to talk about the massive age/power difference which is inherent to this stupid Legends pairing no one asked me to write? and from the perspective of characters who are very bad people and who only vaguely understand why age/power differences are bad? _hell yeah_ we are

Daala had only had a vague idea of what an Imperial Suite even was. Some very important set of rooms, she presumed. It became clearer to her when the doors opened and the Royal Guards waved her and Tarkin through. Somehow in the heart of this dark, cold palace there was a comfortable-looking sitting room. It was pastel and plush and spread-out; there were further, smaller doors in its other walls, and a long window looked out on the twilit city. Clearly this was the Emperors' personal living space. She'd never known Tarkin to go in for pastels, but then, not long ago this room would have been Palpatine's. They probably hadn't had time to remodel.

Near the door there was an arrangement of couches and armchairs around a low table, and in one of the armchairs, directly facing the door, sat Darth Vader.

He looked profoundly out of place amid his plush surroundings, but no less imposing for that. The thick black armor made him look more like a battle tank than a person, and the blinking indicator lights attached to his chest and waist only accentuated the effect. He was bigger and more solid than what a chair like that ought to have allowed, seeming to fill the whole room with his presence. His breath was mechanical and loud. She had only just repeated out loud that Emperor Vader was human, but this was not a human sound.

She had prepared for this as best she could, but merely his presence in the chair in front of her made her want to shiver.

She dropped to one knee and genuflected as the doors closed behind her.

"Do not kneel to me," said Vader before Tarkin could properly introduce them. His voice was louder than she had expected, deep and rich - and impatient. "I do not like it. Rise. Sit."

Daala promptly did as instructed. She noticed Tarkin giving Vader a mildly confused look as she dropped onto the nearest couch, making sure to keep her posture straight and her face rigid. "Yes, my lord."

"Vader," said Tarkin, "may I present Admiral Daala. Natasi, this is Emperor Vader. Do make yourselves comfortable. The only purpose of this meeting is to allow you two to get to know each other." He sank into the armchair next to Emperor Vader's, looking alert but more relaxed than either Daala or Vader.

They looked at each other. Emperor Vader's eyes were featureless curves in the glossy black surface of his mask. Presumably he could see through them somehow. The helmet's design presented a skull-like, forbidding expression. Daala had not yet seen any real clues as to the state of mind underneath. The objection to kneeling meant... something. She would analyze it later.

"It is an honor to meet you, my lord," Daala said, somewhat stiffly. Tarkin had warned her against white lies, but this wasn't quite one; she was acutely aware how few people must ever have been allowed into a room like this. "Emperor Tarkin speaks very highly of you."

Vader seemed to be assessing her carefully. She wondered if that was her imagination. She wondered how many layers deep he could see past the skin of her face. "He speaks very highly of you as well."

"I'm glad to hear it, my lord."

"You were far away doing secret research these last several years, I am told."

"Yes, my lord." She schooled herself to speak precisely and didactically, as if she were explaining the project to some important visiting scientist - not that anyone of that nature ever visited. The scientists who lived at the Maw were there permanently. "Until very recently I was the commander of the Maw Installation, a research base positioned at the center of a black hole cluster near Kessel. The Maw Installation works under the purview of the Tarkin Initiative to develop the next generation of military technologies. There are several minor projects under development, but most of our work at present goes into a weapon called the Sun Crusher. When it's complete, it will be a small craft capable of firing a resonance missile into a star which collapses its core and induces a supernova, even in small stars, wiping out all planets in the system at once. At present that project is proceeding on schedule, but it's still several years out from completion."

"Then you are in the business of technological terror," Vader said, sounding dismissive. "As Director Krennic was. Do not be too proud."

Daala frowned slightly. "I don't know what you mean by 'too proud,' my lord. Weapons are only one aspect of a military's needs, but I do take pride in a job well done."

"No weapon is as formidable as the power of the Force."

"That may be true, my lord." Which was one part of what unnerved her. How did one measure a magical power and stack it up next to the energy throughput of a more sensible device? But the Force was what Emperor Vader specialized in, so of course he'd insist it was better regardless. _Don't let him push you around_. "But you've ensured there is a shortage of Force users for the Empire's armies, so we must turn to other methods."

Vader looked over at Tarkin. "She has your sharp tongue."

Tarkin had lightly pressed a knuckle to his mouth, absorbed in listening to the two of them. "She has a point."

"Then will the Sun Crusher also be destroyed with one shot from a single X-Wing?" Vader queried.

"A single _what?_ " said Daala, appalled. Tarkin had told her that the Rebels found a weakness in the structure, but _that_ level of weakness was too much to be believed.

Vader sounded both bitter and smug. "Tarkin did not tell you what happened to his prize."

Tarkin grimaced. "I told her a short version, Vader. Yes, _technically_ it was a single X-Wing. The Rebels stole the original plans for the station and determined that a well-placed shot to an exhaust port would begin a chain reaction that destroyed the reactor core. It was still a matter of luck that they made the shot at all; the precision needed was more than even a state-of-the-art targeting computer can handle. But they made it."

"That is impossible," Daala said hotly. "It was sabotage."

"The Force was strong with that pilot," said Vader.

"No, she's right," said Tarkin. "Even a Jedi Master should not have been able to destroy a moon-sized battle station with one shot from an X-Wing. That's simply not how battle stations are meant to be built. _You_ didn't think they could do it, either, Vader, remember?"

From the way Vader recoiled, Daala suspected there was more to this story. She did not know how to handle this at all. She'd been in here for two minutes and the two Emperors were already bickering in front of her like they'd been married for years. Whatever she'd expected when she walked into the Imperial Suite, this wasn't it.

"If we had gone with _your_ plan," Vader said sulkily, "the hidden weakness in the Death Star's structure would still exist, waiting for someone to discover it, and we would still have no idea of the location of the Rebel base."

"Technically, since they abandoned the one on Yavin Four, we don't have that now either." Tarkin brushed Vader off and turned back to Daala. "As I said, we've got a team of analysts looking into the problem. Sabotage is likely, but working out the details will be slow going."

"It would be faster," said Vader, "had you not destroyed your own data vault."

"Would you _stop,_ " said Tarkin. "Let's all of us stop. Let's talk about something that isn't the Death Star, shall we? The purpose of this meeting is to get to know one another. Ask something sensible."

Daala looked at Tarkin carefully. He had believed in the Death Star for a very long time; so had she, by extension. For it to fail like this must be a major political blow. Who would follow a leader whose pet project had failed so spectacularly? Emperor Vader, from the sound of it, had been implicated too. Was that why there were factions who didn't want to follow them?

She took a steadying breath. Emperor Vader had asked her about herself, which was how they'd gotten onto this topic. Now it was her turn to find a question.

"How are you finding it, being Emperor?" she asked. "I'm told it hasn't been long since the transition. It must still feel very new."

"Newer than you know," Vader replied. "I was injured in the same incident that killed Emperor Palpatine and spent some time absent for medical treatment. Today was my first full day in the palace."

Daala was taken aback. It surprised her that he'd admit to any injury; Tarkin had told her that Vader took offense at anyone thinking him weak. Or were his injuries already public knowledge?

How _had_ Palpatine died? The newscasters had alluded to his death, but she'd seen no mention of any battles or accidents bad enough to harm a man like Vader. She'd assumed, from their tone, that he'd died of natural causes.

But there was the other possibility, the one that had flickered in the back of her mind since she first saw the newscast, the one that she didn't want to let herself think about.

Tarkin would never agree to regicide, even after the fact. He _hated_ treason. The very idea was silly.

And yet.

"I'm sorry to hear it, my lord," she said neutrally. "I hope you've recovered well."

Vader seemed to be studying her closely. "You learned your sabacc face from Tarkin. Your technique is nearly identical to his. But your minds are not the same underneath."

Daala stayed still and fought against the urge to draw back. Tarkin had warned her about this in particular. Just what did he see when he looked at her, exactly? What did minds look like to people who could see them? Were there types of minds Emperor Vader found pleasant to look at, and types he did not? What was that like? What did it mean for a mind to be pretty, or ugly?

Daala had always thought her mind and Tarkin's were two of a kind; that was why they got along so well. She had no idea what Vader saw that made him think differently. If Daala's mind looked only partly like the mind of a man who was important to Vader, was that good or bad?

"He's been my mentor for a long time, of course," said Daala. "It's not surprising we'd have picked up the same mental habits."

"How old are you, Admiral Daala?"

"Twenty-eight." She'd not only been the Empire's first female admiral, but one of its youngest regardless of gender. "What about you, my lord?"

"Forty-one." Vader turned his head inscrutably. He had paused before giving his age, as if he had to do the calculation from scratch. "You were a child when the Empire rose."

"Yes, my lord." She had been in an orphanage on Botajef at the time. She remembered watching the broadcast in a crowd of other unwanted children. She hadn't really understood the difference it made, back then, whether something called itself a Republic or an Empire, but the announcement had been grand and loud and it had excited her. Maybe things would get better, she remembered thinking, in an Empire. "You would have been older, of course."

"Of course. How did you and Emperor Tarkin meet?"

Daala frowned. Tarkin must have told Vader this story himself, she'd assumed. It was odd if he'd spoken so highly of her without telling it.

"That was about ten years ago, my lord," she said. "I had very recently graduated from the Academy. I'd graduated with top marks, but they didn't want a woman in command, so they had me on kitchen duty. I was playing tactical sims anonymously to vent my frustrations and pass the time. I was very surprised when Grand Moff Tarkin noticed my strategies and came looking for me himself. He ordered me moved to his personal staff to learn directly from him." She raised her chin. This was the part people always had trouble with. "I had always admired him, and he saw potential in me. We saw eye to eye about a great number of things. It shouldn't have shocked anyone that we fell for each other."

That was the version of events that rolled quickly off Daala's tongue. _White lies won't impress him,_ Tarkin had said, and she hadn't told any. Every word she'd just said was true. If there were omissions, that was her own business.

In truth, Daala understood perfectly well why people were shocked. Why her relationship with Tarkin had sparked a formal investigation when the Empire's other forms of nepotism didn't. Deep down, she'd understood even when it began. Tarkin had always been one of Daala's heroes, and the way he'd admired her, after a whole life of more or less nobody approving of her existence, had made her very weak. She'd wanted nothing more than to meet his expectations. Failure was never discussed, but she'd known that if she failed him she'd be back to menial work for the rest of her career, forever itching for confrontation and frustrated and _bored._

She'd assumed he only wanted to tutor her for a while and then set her loose. A strictly professional thing. But Daala had been perceptive, even then, and soon enough she'd noticed the way Tarkin's eyes followed her when they didn't have a reason to. The way they sometimes dipped down to examine her whole body. The way absent, collegial pats on her shoulder were beginning to last half a second longer than necessary.

Daala had been young, but not stupid. She knew what this was. She'd been warned men would try things. She'd assumed that, if something like this ever happened to her, she would run - or fight. But she'd looked back into Tarkin's hungry, pitiless eyes, and some part of her had liked the idea. The same part that liked to take risks, to throw herself into a battle and get blood on her knuckles. She'd shocked herself, really, with how much she'd liked it.

Besides, wasn't this the same thing he'd taught her already? Good commanders didn't flinch. They didn't let things like scruples hold them back. They knew their goal, and they did whatever was necessary to reach it.

So Daala had done a lot of thinking very fast. _She'd_ made the first move, just for the sake of being able to say she had. She'd shown no fear. And there had been pleasure in it, much more than she'd expected. Years of pleasure. He was good to her that way.

She had no regrets. But she knew why people said it was wrong.

"What about you, my lord?" she said coolly to Emperor Vader. She wouldn't let any uncomfortable silence descend. "I know you've worked with Emperor Tarkin for a long time. What made you decide you wanted a relationship with each other?"

Vader, oddly, looked over at Tarkin, who had subsided into watching the two of them converse with an intrigued look. But Tarkin didn't immediately speak for him, and after a moment Vader answered. "That happened nearly two years ago. We would have wanted it earlier, if not for certain misunderstandings. I had not realized that he might return my interest. _He_ had not realized intimacy was possible for me. Once those mistakes were corrected, the rest followed quickly."

Tarkin looked amused. "Not so quickly as all that. The sex was easy. Getting you to let down your emotional guard, that took longer."

Daala resisted the urge to squirm slightly. She had been trying not to think about how, exactly, Vader and Tarkin's relationship worked. But now it had been directly brought up and she could not quite picture either easy sex between them or emotional vulnerability. She knew Vader was very injured, which was why he needed that suit of armor. What happened to it when he was with Tarkin? Did he take it off? Did he leave it on? Which one of them did what? She knew Tarkin mostly preferred to be dominant, but to look at all two meters of Emperor Vader and imagine him _submitting_ was beyond her.

Vader abruptly turned his head to look at her again, though she'd said nothing, and she felt herself blanch.

"You fear me," said Vader. He sounded amused. Tarkin had been right; he was the bullying type. Well, she wouldn't make it easy for him.

"I should think everyone fears you," Daala said flatly, holding his blank black gaze. "That's how you rule, isn't it? You wouldn't be satisfied with your work if they didn't."

She thought she saw Tarkin leaning forward slightly, in the corner of her eye.

"You fear the Force," said Vader.

_If he asks you a question, be forthright._ "I've never much liked the idea, my lord. It's hard enough to run a galaxy without a bunch of poorly regulated sorcerers running around. You can't shoot the Force with a torpedo, you can't build armor to block it out, you can't detonate it or shock it unconscious, and a group of Force users already tried to betray the Emperor once before. There aren't many good tactics against it. I don't trust the Force."

Vader loomed at her from his armchair. "You are wise not to trust it."

"Then should I mistrust you?"

He shook a finger at her scoldingly. "You will be a fool if you ever trust me."

She was not at all sure why the conversation had turned this way. But if he wanted to test her, she'd test him back. "Yet you want the galaxy to trust you as its Emperor."

"I killed Emperor Palpatine," said Vader. "Do you want to know why?"

" _Enough,_ Vader," said Tarkin from his own chair, and Vader sat back sullenly. "This is ridiculous. I forgot you can't converse like a normal person." He glanced at Daala. "And you. I said _assert yourself_. I didn't say _provoke him._ "

Daala was entirely too stunned to answer.

She had suspected already. Maybe Vader had even sensed her suspicion. But she hadn't wanted to think about it. Regicide was one of the few crimes she'd believed was beyond the pale even for Tarkin. Yet Vader had confessed it to her, unprompted, at their very first meeting. What the motherfucking kriff was going _on?_

Before she could collect herself, Vader rose from his seat. "It is ridiculous, as you say. I have heard enough. I have a shuttle to catch and a fortress to visit. I will make contact with you later."

Even Tarkin looked disturbed, now. "Vader-"

Vader turned to him, pointing his finger again. "You have my permission to continue your relationship. Do _not_ make me regret it. Your position as Emperor depends on my good will."

Tarkin got up out of his chair. "Vader, let's-"

But Emperor Vader had already turned and swept the rest of the way out of the room, his black cape billowing behind him. Daala and Tarkin met each other's eyes, bewildered, as the door hissed shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway, welcome to the worst polycule in the galaxy, admiral daala, here's your membership card. i am sincerely sorry.
> 
> there will be more vader POV next chapter, eventually.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daala and Tarkin manage to sort things out while Vader contemplates getting therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I had a bunch of chapters drafted but needed to spend a while revising? Yeah. I may be on a mass revising and posting binge. Or I may not? Who knows. Not me. I cannot predict my own actions, even the really predictable ones.
> 
> Also I am by no means any kind of mental health professional and I apologize for any unintended errors in... really, any of M4's dialogue, at all, ever. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Daala held her breath as the door closed behind Emperor Vader. She watched Tarkin carefully as he looked at her, then at the door with a conflicted expression, then back at her.

They were alone now. By rights, this should have been when she relaxed a little, let out a breath, turned her attention to him fully. She wasn't sure she was capable of that just yet.

"That could have gone better," she observed.

Tarkin looked back at the door. "You may not find this reassuring, but it could also have gone much worse. He admitted vulnerability in front of you; he showed an interest in your life and your feelings; he confessed personal things. He has the social skills of a veermok, but I think he likes you." He took a long breath and let it out slowly, turning to her with a careful, narrowed gaze. "I think it got a bit too much for him towards the end, that's all. As for that last confession he made, I trust we can keep it between us."

Daala was so bewildered she thought she might cry. "Will you explain to me what the kriff is going _on_ , sir?"

"I suppose I owe you that." Tarkin walked back, not to the armchair where he'd sat before, but to the couch next to her, sitting at a tantalizingly cordial distance. He could have reached out and touched her, but he didn't. "It's a long story, but a simple one at heart. Vader used to be a Jedi, you see."

Daala didn't see what that had to do with _anything,_ but she answered politely. "Yes, sir. I knew that."

"The Jedi had their system of masters and apprentices. When Vader left them and took the Empire's side, he chose Palpatine as his new master. But Palpatine was a crueller master than most. Vader found himself profoundly mistreated and, due to Palpatine's own Force abilities, unable to wrest himself away. Eventually, he enlisted my help to solve the problem. I didn't do this simply for power, Natasi. You know what I think about that. An Empire requires stable leadership; it requires people to think beyond their own interests and do as they're told. But I'd seen close up the difficulty Vader was in. And when it came down to taking his side or Palpatine's, I'm afraid I chose the one of them I liked more. The galaxy will adjust."

Daala curled her knees slightly toward her on the couch and faced away from him. She would never have allowed herself such a childish gesture in front of anyone else. But Tarkin was different - that was how it had always been. Tarkin had helped her build the emotional walls that stood between her and the world. Only Tarkin was allowed to see behind them.

Daala had met Palpatine before. She hadn't known him well, not the way Tarkin did. But Palpatine had visited the Maw a couple of times to make his own research requests. On some of those visits, he'd spoken to her personally. He'd been a very old and ugly little man, but there had been a clear intelligence in his yellowed eyes. He'd seemed patient and interested in the people around him. She had never heard of him having Force powers. She knew that Palpatine's grandfatherliness was partly an act, a face he put on because he wanted something. Like most politicians, he was not fully trustworthy. But he was good, at least, at ruling the galaxy. It was hard to imagine him as the cruel master abusing a man like _Vader,_ a man with so much more obvious power and so many fewer compunctions in throwing it around. Something here didn't add up.

Tarkin _wasn't_ the kind of person who'd commit regicide in cold blood, not for his own gain. He believed in order and obedience even more than he believed in himself. Yet Daala knew he had a more impulsive side than he liked to admit. He liked chiding her for her more reckless strategies, pretending to be a creature of careful rationality himself. He was colder than most. But when something did hook itself deeply enough into Tarkin's feelings, he became as reckless about it as anyone.

So if Tarkin had developed some personal vendetta against the Emperor, if the man he loved was suffering and regicide seemed like the only solution, maybe he _would_ do it then. Daala wasn't sure she approved, but she could picture it. And if that was what had happened - if Vader and Tarkin's rise to power was merely the result of something unspeakably messy and personal...

Well, then that made three of them.

"Come now," said Tarkin behind her. "Don't sulk. What's done is done. What did you think about Vader?"

Daala turned. She was tired of talking about Vader already. She wanted to forget him, but Tarkin wouldn't let her get away with that. He wanted her to use her skills, assess, decide. Except she'd only just gotten off the kriffing shuttle. She hadn't seen her guest quarters yet. She'd eaten supper, but only in the form of standard officer's rations on the _Gorgon._ She'd barely been outside. She hadn't seen the sunrise.

She hadn't been able to fall into Tarkin's arms and have her fill of him, which was what she really wanted. Daala knew what Tarkin was capable of as a lover. She could surrender to him, and he could drive everything else out of her, all the loneliness and anger, all the parts of this story that didn't make sense. She wanted that. His skin against her skin. His teeth. She wanted to know how those strange, shining robes felt bunched up in her fist. It had been so long.

But Emperor Vader would still be there in the morning.

There was no way around it. If she couldn't handle this, she had to think it through and say so. If she could, she had to think it through anyway. Tarkin would not allow her the shortcut.

"Sir," she said, "I'm not convinced he's fit to rule."

"He will be. Don't underestimate him. He falls back on intimidation when he feels unsure, because until recently that was the majority of his job description. But he's cleverer and more adaptable than he looks."

Daala frowned slightly. "I made him feel unsure, you mean."

She had been too absorbed to think about it before. It had taken all of her concentration just to hold her own in Vader's presence and keep her composure. But she understood now. A lot of people in the Empire were the bullying type. They reached their loudest levels, their most dismissive airs, when they felt insecure. Even Daala had done that, to a degree, pushing back against him sharply not only because Tarkin had told her to stand up for herself, but because deep down she feared the alternative.

Somehow, Admiral Daala's presence had made even the terrifying psychic cyborg Emperor of the galaxy feel _insecure._

Huh.

Tarkin favored her with a small smile. "You have that effect on people, my dear."

"He's jealous," she concluded.

The smile vanished. "Yes, unfortunately. This is the first time we've opened the relationship in this particular way. He may take time to adjust. But we have his permission, as you saw."

"Maybe we should wait, sir. I know what he said, but he didn't sound happy."

Daala actually had only a vague idea of the ethics of this sort of thing. In the beginning, Tarkin had not been nearly this circumspect about his wife's feelings. In fact, Daala had almost never met his other partners. She was used to being Tarkin's little secret. But all that was changing now. And carrying on a relationship defiantly in Darth Vader's face, when he was clearly distressed by it and could murder them both, seemed unwise.

Tarkin's hands made another small, equivocal motion. Daala couldn't not look at them, unfashionably bare despite his finery, the fingers slender and long. She wanted those hands on her body again.

"The problem," said Tarkin, "is that Vader doesn't like people second-guessing him. If he agrees to something, grudgingly or otherwise, he considers the matter settled. He'd much rather see things go ahead despite his mixed feelings than be asked over and over. That's not to say we _can't_ wait, but if we do, it should be for our own benefit. It won't make him happier."

So they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. And Emperor Vader got to complain either way. Daala didn't like this.

But Daala wasn't one to let people stand in her way.

She took a breath and put out a hand, halfway between them on the couch, not looking.

Tarkin didn't hesitate. Daala wore gloves as a part of her uniform, but she felt the slight pressure of Tarkin's bare hand covering hers. He was very gentle, barely clasping her. She could have pulled away with trifling ease if she'd wanted to. There was nothing in her even a little bit capable of trying.

"Did you miss me, sir?" she asked, clipped and deliberately unemotional. "While I was gone."

Daala had not wanted to go to the Maw. They'd fought the night he ordered her away. He'd insisted it was necessary to protect her, but she'd known his real reason, deep down. Tarkin, who so rarely ever flinched, had been ashamed of her. He knew why what he'd done with her was wrong. He didn't want to have to stand before the Senate and defend it.

 _She'd_ wanted to. That was what he'd taught her. Stare them all down. Refuse to give ground. If they made it through this then no one could ever keep them from each other again. They could be together in the daylight. She'd wanted that.

But it was Tarkin who'd won the fight, of course, and she had no authority that didn't come from him. Later that night, she'd crept into his bed anyway, clinging to one last bit of warmth before the morning saw her off.

It would do no good to have that argument over again, three years late. What happened had happened. He'd never apologize.

And they had the daylight now, though not in the way she'd imagined. Her hand was in his. She could have it now, if she was brave enough to take it while a creature like Vader looked on.

"Very much," said Tarkin. "I had a number of regrets. But I contented myself knowing that you had power where you were, and personal responsibility for some of the most exciting projects in the Empire's future. I knew it would be hard for you, but I knew you could bear it. I knew you'd make me proud." His hand moved against hers, lightly stroking, as if soothing some tiny animal. "What about you? You were so angry when you left. Did you miss me?"

"All the time, sir," she whispered. "Every day."

He raised his hand, tentatively, to her hair.

She turned towards him. Her eyes fluttered, and she fought the urge to close them entirely, to lean in with blind animal need. Any second now, she'd crack.

"Would you like something simple?" he asked. "Something light? It's been a while, after all."

"No, sir," she said. She swallowed hard to regain her voice, looked him directly in the eye. "I want it to be the way it was."

At that, he smiled outright.

They both leaned in at the same time.

When Daala felt the brush of Tarkin's lips against hers, something deep inside her broke. She surged forward, rough and desperate, pushing him awkwardly against the couch's cushions. The royal robes were as soft as she'd imagined, and her fingernails dug into them. Her teeth scraped accidentally against his lower lip. Daala could not hold herself still anymore. She had been dying of thirst for three years, and here was water.

With a single motion, Tarkin tightened his grip in her hair and pulled her back. Not far. Just clearing an inch between them. "Slower, my dear. Don't rush this."

Just like that, he had her. She couldn't make herself still. But _he_ could make her. Daala worked so hard every day to be strong, to exert her will on men who mostly didn't take her seriously. Alone with Tarkin, _only_ with Tarkin, she could put that all down. Let everything fall away but him, and _his_ will, and the pleasure he gave her.

"Yes, sir," she whispered.

When he kissed her again it was long and careful and thorough, and she matched his pace. Every nerve in her body screamed for more, but she would get more when he felt it was time. Now that he had her, she didn't doubt. The galaxy might still be in disarray; Emperor Vader might be storming off to do stars-knew-what; everyone might be a traitor. But she could put that aside for tonight. Natasi Daala had come home.

*

Vader strode onto the _Executor_ in a foul mood, dismissing his honor guard impatiently. He barely glanced at the crew. They were heading to Fortress Inquisitorius and then home. _He_ was heading to his meditation chamber. He needed more sleep and more medicine. He needed to calm the fuck down.

He'd only needed a few minutes watching Admiral Daala to get a sense of her mind. She was _far_ too young for her post, Tarkin had _really_ gone overboard with those promotions, but she was alert and intelligent, devoted and bold. She was pretty enough, with her long red hair and her piercing eyes. He'd tested her mettle, and she'd stood up to it well.

The surface of Daala's mind, her mannerisms, her calculating attitude, were so much like Tarkin's. But Tarkin's mind was cold and clear all the way down. Daala's surface traits had the air of learned things, habits she'd practiced for so long that even she could no longer tell them from instinct. Deep below them, there was something else. Something burning. Tarkin's lessons could so easily have smothered a flame like that, but instead it seemed they'd channeled it, given it outlets more precise and more powerful than before.

Vader had not been sure, until she arrived, just what Daala's feelings for Tarkin would be. Tarkin clearly cared for her, and he _believed_ Daala cared for him back, but Vader hadn't been able to tell from Tarkin's stories if that was true. For all he knew, maybe she'd given in to Tarkin's advances out of fear - or pure ambitious calculation. Vader had not know which it would be until about half a second after Daala entered the room, but then it had been clear enough. She did love Tarkin. Sitting in the room, making conversation, while the two of them mentally yearned for each other at top volume, had been exactly as uncomfortable as Vader had feared.

Yet there was a dark note mixed in with her desire, something that should not have been mixed that way. He'd felt it particularly when he asked her how they'd met. Vader couldn't articulate what it was or why it disturbed him, and honestly he didn't want to think about it. He had enough other worries.

In any case - Daala was young and fierce, beautiful and capable, and she was very much in love with the man Vader loved.

Vader wanted to stop caring. He had other things to _do_. There was a civil war on, and Vader was an emperor now. An emperor was a bad thing to be, as he'd belatedly realized, but there was no use whining about it. He would soldier on as he'd always done. He might not be free, but he could still make the galaxy his own, to the extent that his circumstances allowed.

He would start with, as Nemeus had called it, his first official act. Vader had never liked the Inquisitors, and it would be satisfying, he hoped, to be rid of them. Vader would spend a while ridding himself of the things he didn't like, as Tarkin had instructed, and he would see if that helped.

It be an overnight flight through hyperspace before he got to Fortress Inquisitorius, though. So Vader had some self-care and some waiting to do. Shut up in the quiet of his personal quarters at last, he plucked his medicine packets from their box and fed them into the appropriate port of his suit. It took a while. There were a lot more medicines than normal right now. There was also M4-R3K, who had gotten back onto the _Executor_ before he had, and who now sat looking restless and frustrated at the other side of the room.

"Where are we headed, Lord Vader?" said M4. "Home, right? It's weird being out in space with you. Not bad weird. Just weird. I miss having my full set of medical tools. I know they have spares of everything in the infirmary but it's just not the same."

"We will make one other stop first, and then home."

"Okay. But not a big stop, right?" He didn't answer, and her voice rose in pitch to a small whine. "Come _on,_ Lord Vader. Medicine still obeys the laws of physics, okay? You need to get back in your tank pretty soon or those lightsaber wounds are going to reopen, and I don't know what sustained mental stress in this state is going to do to you. I can only stave off so much of that with drugs. I am worried about you, Lord Vader. You need _bacta._ "

Vader waved her off. M4 didn't go on missions with him normally. Usually she waited for him at home, then rushed to his side and treated the results of however he'd pushed himself. She didn't usually have to watch him do it; that was likely all that troubled her. "We will be home soon enough."

"We'd better," she fumed.

Vader gave her a long, speculative look. He needed to sleep, but he was too on-edge to do it immediately. Vader was clearly having difficulty dealing with the demands of reality, whether it was the Imperial Palace's reality, or Tarkin's, or apparently even M4's. Perhaps she could help him with that.

"You are concerned about mental stress," he said.

"Yeah. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but you started a new job today and it's not a job that's known for being easy. You stayed a lot longer than you meant to, you did Force things that are known to be stressful for you, and I don't even _know_ what happened with you and Tarkin and Tarkin's other friend, but I'm here if you want to talk about that too. And all this while you're still physically not in the best of shape, Lord Vader. You're under some stress. Don't try to tell me you aren't."

"If I were to ask you for psychological treatment," he asked, "what would that entail?"

M4 looked up at him. She seemed both taken aback and pleased. "Well, it'd be up to you and what you wanted to work on, Lord Vader, but generally the first thing I'd do is run you through a verbal diagnostic screening."

"A verbal screening?" Vader was intrigued. That sounded very old-fashioned. "Why not simply use a scanner?"

"I mean, my medical scanners are pretty good, Lord Vader. I can see what's going on with your neurotransmitters and hormones and even your brainwaves a little, and that definitely helps narrow it down. But the trouble with mental illness is that it's usually not _just_ about neurotransmitters. It's more about the relationship between those physical things and your subjective experience and figuring out where that's gone out of whack. So what I'd have to do is, basically, ask a whole lot of very specific questions about how you've been feeling subjectively, cross-reference them with what my scanner tells me, and then see what known patterns of mental dysfunction that lines you up with."

Vader shifted uncomfortably. He did not exactly expect privacy where M4 was concerned. He was used to her monitoring everything from his heart rate to his bodily wastes. But the idea of her interrogating his mind, on a subjective level, bothered him more. It reminded him of Palpatine, peering into him, searching for mental inefficiencies to correct.

"You have known me for fifteen years," Vader said. "Surely you can draw conclusions without further probing."

M4 drew herself up. "Nope. That's against my programming. No mental health diagnosis without a full formal screening, otherwise how am I gonna tell the real clinical information apart from my own pet peeves about you? No droid's allowed to do that. Not gonna happen."

Vader turned his head. "This implies that you have an opinion."

"Nope."

"Hypothetically, if you screened me, what would you expect to find?"

"You're not going to let this go, Lord Vader, are you?"

"No."

She was playing at being annoyed, but Vader thought he detected something pleased in her voice. She had wanted to offer him treatment of this nature. He hadn't _exactly_ accepted, but he'd shown interest, and that was a step forward.

"Okay, well, _hypothetically,_ Lord Vader, if I had to put down money predicting the results of your hypothetical screening, my _guess_ would be that you've got a whopping case of complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Plus a mild to moderate attention deficit. I'd bet that you'd also meet the criteria for a personality disorder or two, an atypical major depression, and some kind of mild chronic dissociative thing, but all those things are really hard to disambiguate from C-PTSD symptoms, so they wouldn't be official diagnoses right away. We'd note them down informally and reassess after some trauma work. That's _if_ we were making a treatment plan based on that set of screening results, which we are _not,_ because they're hypothetical."

"What do you mean by _trauma work?_ More of the exposure treatments?" Those had been difficult to do, but they had helped. He could imagine a series of careful controlled exposures to his Imperial responsibilities, to people kneeling, to Admiral Daala, to whatever else troubled him.

"No, not just those. Those were the best I could do under Palpatine's rules, but they only helped you get better at doing one thing. This would be more encompassing, and it would start slower." She gestured freely; she seemed excited to finally be able to talk about this, even in hypotheticals. "Most comprehensive trauma treatments go in phases. The first step isn't about working on the traumatic memories directly; it's about stabilization. You've got to be sure that you're out of the trauma before you can look back and process it all. So we'd look at your current life situation, relationships, and coping mechanisms and we'd figure out how to get you feeling safe, so that we'd all have some solid ground to start from in the next phase."

Vader drew back. He was _not_ safe; he felt that instinctively. The political situation was deeply precarious, _Tarkin_ was precarious, and something that might or might not be real was stalking him on levels even beyond that. But if he understood correctly, M4 was saying she wouldn't help him deal with those things unless he let her convince him that he was safe. Like Palpatine, trying to expel disloyal thoughts from Vader's mind. He could not let that happen.

"I need to sleep," he said, stepping into his meditation chamber. He closed it behind him before she could answer.

*

This time, when the nightmare came, Vader was ready. He felt the terror as strongly as before. But he'd been through this a few times now, and he was _angry._

 _No,_ he roared, as the dark presence loomed in at him like smoke.

He could feel what this presence wanted from him. It wanted to bore its way into his mind, to take him over, to wear his body like a puppet. A mere _no_ would keep it at bay, but not forever.

 _What are you?_ Vader demanded, letting his rage put force behind the question. If he understood his opponent's nature then he could find a way to fight it, kill it. Who _are you?_

And the presence seemed to shift before his eyes. It was as amorphous as before, but it suddenly felt familiar. The feeling of an amused leer like Palpatine's. Yellow eyes fixed mockingly on him. He thought he could hear his master's laughter in the distance.

 _I,_ said the presence as it pressed close, _am all the Sith._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarkin and Daala have a nice night, and Tarkin explains more about Vader. Meanwhile, Vader shuts down the Inquisitorius program.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so MORE THAN ONE CONTENT NOTE for this chapter
> 
> First: it's not as explicit as the sex scenes in "Playing With Fire," which is why this whole story is M and not E, but there is definitely some kinky Tarkin/Daala sex at the beginning of this chapter. If you're squicked by this pairing you can just skip the first 10 or so paragraphs. After that point, the rest of the scene is just them cuddling and talking about Vader some more.
> 
> (What, you've never brought up Darth Vader during pillow talk? Pssh.)
> 
> Second: this chapter & chapter 10 are where the Vader angst gets really heavy for a bit. Like even heavier than in chapter 5, so be prepared for that.
> 
> And, third: it's mostly offscreen/referenced rather than happening in the moment, but TW for harm to children in the Vader part of the chapter as well.

Emperor Tarkin's bed was _big,_ every bit the bed of an emperor. It had posts at its corners and a big blue-gray canopy overtop, the old-fashioned kind, which Daala had only ever seen in holos. Everything in the Imperial bedroom looked brand-new and similar to the style of other bedrooms Tarkin had snuck Daala into over the years, on the rare occasions they'd had a real bedroom and not just quarters on a ship. His apartments on Coruscant; his governor's mansion on Eriadu; his beach house on Scarif. But this room was far grander than any of them. It retained neither the cold black severity of the Imperial Palace's main halls nor the weird pastel softness of the sitting room. She was fairly sure Tarkin, fastidious as always, had replaced everything in the bedroom as soon as he ascended the throne. The sitting room might not need to be changed much, the palace as a whole could retain his predecessor's design, but Tarkin would _not_ be caught sleeping or fucking his lovers on Palpatine's sheets.

Daala had told Tarkin she wanted it to be like it was. Not a gentle re-introduction to sex, but a dive straight back in to the heavy kink they'd both loved. So that was what he did to her. He held her close, kissed and teased her until she couldn't help but whine for more - and then he bound her to that great big bed and beat her until she cried. He'd meant for it to happen, he liked reducing people to tears, but it mortified her how quickly she cracked; her body was no longer accustomed to this, and Tarkin knew its every weakness. Into those blue-gray sheets she sobbed out three whole years of loneliness, of not knowing if or when he would ever come back for her.

"You did miss me, didn't you?" Tarkin murmured, cruelly enthralled, a hand in her hair. He hadn't been able to stop touching her hair. "You couldn't bear to exist without me."

"No, sir," she whispered, quite truthfully. And then his crop came down across her shoulders again.

Only Tarkin, of all the people Daala had ever imagined, could be trusted to see her like this. Tarkin knew how to break her apart and put her back together stronger.

At the end of the tears there was peace; there was a core of her that could float in sensation and think of nothing at all. She was nothing but that core, she could not have coherently moved or spoken, but she still craved him with a wanting as strong as pain. It was only when she'd reached that point that he took off those royal robes and climbed onto the bed himself, pressing his thin body against hers. She arched toward him, shameless. His lovemaking was gentle compared to what had come before. He murmured to her all the while about how good she was, how well she'd taken him, how she surrendered.

When he was finished with her, he unbound her and led her to the fresher while she stumbled, giggling, too high on endorphins to see straight. He got her into the shower safely, and she scrubbed herself off in the sinfully hot water. Unlimited water, wow. It seemed like magic. When she'd reluctantly emerged and toweled off, he gave her something to eat - a real piece of teacake, fresh from the Imperial kitchens, the first thing she'd eaten in years that wasn't shipboard rations - and a glass of water. He took his own, more efficient turn washing. Then he guided her back to the bed and pulled those soft gray covers over them both.

That was where she lay now, half-asleep, with the wiry heat of his body pressed against her back. Her mind was beginning to work again, and the situation was slowly sinking back in. Daala hadn't only returned to a galaxy at war with itself; she'd chosen sides. She'd slipped into bed with one of the new claimants to the throne, in the very bedchamber of the man he'd helped murder. It didn't truly matter if she thought it was right or wrong. Her career and position fully depended on this pair of men. They were all three of them traitors now.

She hadn't felt like this since their very first time, a decade ago. She'd lain awake then in a bunk much less impressive than this one, as pleased with herself as a kitten, yet shaking slightly, inexplicably, with the immensity of what she'd done.

"You've got a new scar," she murmured, trying to distract herself. Tarkin's was criscrossed with battle scars, and she'd long ago memorized their contours, traced her fingers across them all. She'd noticed the new one in the shower, a jagged, darkened one circling his lower leg.

"Have I?" he said. He sounded half-asleep, too.

"Around your leg."

"Oh, that. That's been there a while. A funny story. The first time I visited Vader's fortress on Mustafar, a rare form of lava creature intruded on us. That's where it grabbed me. I found out later that it had been a test sent deliberately by the Emperor."

Daala quirked an eyebrow. "A test of what, sir? Did he doubt that you could protect each other?"

Tarkin laughed shortly. She felt more than heard it, the puff of his breath against the back of her neck. "Hardly. The opposite, in fact. Palpatine sensed that Vader had feelings for me, and he wanted to ensure that Vader's first loyalty remained with him. So he warned Vader of the attack in advance and ordered him _not_ to defend me, nor to warn me what was coming. If he'd been unable to follow such an order, I suspect we both would have been harmed more severely."

Daala wrinkled her nose, trying to wrap her head around that. "Is that why you killed him, sir?"

"No. Not then. But you can see why I'm not sorry he's gone."

Daala considered that. Tarkin had taught her all about ruling by fear. She'd made her own brutal demonstrations at the Maw; the troops would never have taken her authority seriously without them. Palpatine seemed to have governed Vader using much the same principles. She could see why he and Tarkin hadn't liked it, though.

Tarkin shifted a little closer against her, playing with her hair, which was unbound by this time, pooling brightly around her head. He'd always been handsy when it suited him, but tonight he had practically clung to her, as if starved for the touch of bare skin. It might just be relief at having her back again after three years, but she had a strange feeling it wasn't just that.

"You're huggy," she observed. He stirred slightly, starting to pull away, and she clarified. "Not a bad thing, sir. Good thing. I like it."

He made another amused noise and then pulled her even closer. Tarkin was all bone and gristle, not a presence she could fully relax into, but she liked the feel of him all the same. "I didn't realize I was doing it, but you're right. You have Vader to thank for that, I suppose."

She frowned, taking a second to follow his logic. "Because of the armor, sir?"

Tarkin sounded slightly abashed. "Yes. He has his ways of being satisfying, of course, but you can imagine it's difficult to get much in the way of skin contact. I suppose I've learned to savor it."

Oh, no, and now they were on this topic again. At least Vader wasn't here in the room, watching her mind, turning his head to notice when she inevitably tried to picture it. There _was_ something horribly fascinating about the mental image. "How does it work, sir, you and him? Does he, um, submit to you?"

"We've tried it various ways, but no, generally it's the reverse. I've, ah, been exploring that side of myself."

That was a surprise, but it made sense. Daala knew that Tarkin liked to switch every once in a while. _After all,_ he'd once explained, _it would hardly be fair to expect you to suffer in ways that I couldn't endure for myself._ She'd never been interested in playing dominant to him, so it was a thing he did with other people, usually other men. He'd often come back from those adventures with a strange air, lighter yet somehow dissatisfied, as if he'd gotten most of what he wanted but not quite all.

She'd never imagined that Tarkin could sustain a whole relationship in the submissive role. But when he talked about Emperor Vader, he didn't have any of that strange dissatisfaction. He sounded slightly abashed, as if it might change what she thought of him, but content. Tarkin was so fearsome and indomitable himself; maybe it took a living nightmare Vader's size to convince him he could give himself over.

Daala almost wanted to see what that looked like.

"Do you know," said Tarkin, and there was something distant in his voice now. This was a reminiscence more for his own benefit than hers. "I have seen him with his armor off. We've been intimate that way. It was Vader's idea; it was something he wanted very much. But it took an entire year of therapy before he could be touched without triggering some awful flashback."

He shouldn't be telling her this, Daala thought. Would Emperor Vader be comfortable with him telling her? He'd told her so many private things tonight, mostly while Vader wasn't around to hear.

But they were clearly private things that weighed on him. Who else could he have talked to, these past few years, as he was drawn deeper and deeper into the weird dark web that was apparently Emperor Vader's life? He sounded like he'd kept it all to himself for a long time.

Tarkin was the one person Daala trusted enough to let down her guard. And sometimes he trusted her that way in return, confessing doubts and difficulties that he'd never otherwise allow himself to voice. In the afterglow, everything felt safe, and Daala felt like a place where he could put the things he needed to.

Besides, she wanted to know. She wanted all these pieces of him that had been kept from her.

"Because of Palpatine?" she asked, trying to piece this sordid story together. "Did he-"

She felt Tarkin roll onto his back to stare up at the blue-gray canopy. "Vader says it wasn't a sexual form of abuse. Only everything else. Medical experiments, mystic rites, tests like the one with the lava monster. And subtler things. Ways of isolating him, making him compliant and so on. In truth, I still don't understand it all. It's not something he likes to discuss."

She turned over onto her other side to face him. Vader might not have discussed it, but it seemed like something Tarkin's mind had been worrying at, the particular ways in which Vader had been hurt. "I didn't think you were the pitying type, sir."

"Oh, I'm not. But I am a great believer in survival and adaptation, and Vader is the most ingenious survivor I've ever met. He was admitted to the Jedi Order later than normal, after a very difficult childhood, and they were reluctant to accept him; but he pushed on to become one of their most successful generals. When the Order fell, he lost everyone he loved in a day. He literally fell into lava and incurred injuries that should have been lethal, but he stayed alive through sheer stubbornness in the Force. He learned to fight all over again in that suit of his. Palpatine took away his old identity and entrapped him in a position where he wasn't permitted to be much more than a killing machine, really not even a person. And so he became the greatest killing machine the galaxy ever knew. Eventually, even Palpatine's traps couldn't hold him." He rolled to face her, and suddenly his blue-gray gaze was focused on hers, keen and insistent. "That's why I'm not worried about his fitness to rule. He'll adapt to this role, too. Or, if it's not what he wants, he'll eventually realize he has other options and fly off to excel at them instead. All he can do from here is grow."

The fervency in his eyes, the faith he had in Emperor Vader, was astonishing. Tarkin didn't look at many people that way. When someone as uncompromising as Tarkin saw such potential in someone else, their admiration became something like a drug, impossible to resist. Daala knew it well.

This wasn't some fling that had gotten out of hand, then, not merely a sexual alliance that brought power to them both. Despite the way they bickered, this was love.

On impulse, Daala pressed closer to him, buried her face in the crook of his neck. He wrapped his arm indulgently around her bare shoulders.

"And the Empire, sir?" she asked.

She could hear the sly assurance in his voice. "That will grow, too, once the current unrest dies down. You'll see. Soon enough, we'll have it all."

*

Fortress Inquisitorius stood on an ocean moon not far from Mustafar, and as Vader's shuttle approached, a storm was brewing. Rain and wind lashed the waves into towers, crashing against the fortress's black walls, exploding into a flayingly strong salt spray. The landing pad was high enough above the surface to survive this, and Vader strode into the complex with his cape whipping around him, even as the wind screamed against the shuttle's folded wings.

The entrance hall of this fortress was as grand, dark, and gloomy as Fortress Vader's. A heavy portcullis rose to admit him, and beyond it, far enough back that the spray of the air did not reach, there was a round, dim entrance hall. The Inquisitors had been told Vader was coming, and they waited for him here. Kneeling, heads bowed, like everyone.

Vader surveyed them for a moment. He still felt a queasy anxiety when he saw people kneel for him, but he understood it now, so it was not a concern. The Inquisitors were pitiful, few in number compared to what they'd once been. Most of them had already died at the hands of the Jedi they hunted, or sometimes at Vader's. They'd never been as strong as true Sith; they'd been tortured and forced into falling, rather than tempted to it as Vader had, and the Dark Side had always sat uneasily in them. There were only three left in this fortress now. Third Brother, slender and bug-eyed, in a tense genuflection that looked more like a crouch; Ninth Sister, the hulking horned Dowutin, as tall on her knees as most men would be standing; Twelfth Sister, who kept her face covered with black fabric even indoors. All of them were focused on him intently, tense with anticipation.

Vader did not want to be a Sith master, but that was what he was. And it had been foolish of him, a hypocritical burst of emotion, to cringe away from it. If Vader ever took an apprentice, the torments he was expected to visit upon them would be only a little bit different from what he'd already done. Each of the Inquisitors had lost limbs at his hands or worse. Vader had already been master and tormentor, to these and to so many others; he had no innocence left to lose.

He didn't fully understand what the dream-apparition had told him, but he knew enough. It was either Palpatine himself, or some Sith presence passed down from master to master through the ages, through Palpatine, to him - or it wanted him to think it was. One day soon it might well best him. It would replace whatever he accomplished here with its own plans, probably only a continuation of his master's. Vader would exert as much will as he could until then, but it wouldn't do much good; once that thing wore his skin, it could undo his orders as easily as he'd given them.

But Vader had never liked the Inquisitorius, and he saw no point continuing.

"You have heard," he said, his deep voice ringing in the cavernous room, "that Lord Sidious is dead. I am the Emperor now, and the master of the Sith."

And in all three of the minds that bowed before him, he felt-

Hope.

Ambition.

Not hope that he would set them free. Hope, because a position had opened. Darth Vader was the Sith master now, and that meant there was need for an apprentice.

Despite every horror Vader had ever visited upon them, each Inquisitor hoped he would choose them. All three wanted to fight the others for it. Each one wanted to rise in that way - and why shouldn't they? It was the way of the Sith. It was what he had taught them.

If only he could teach them differently now. If only he could show them that everything, even at the top, tasted of ash.

"I am not here to take an apprentice," he said. "I am here to disband you, effective immediately. You are neither employed by the Empire nor will the Empire pursue you. All Purge Troopers and servants employed at this fortress are being recalled. You may keep your lightsabers, but you will surrender those parts of your uniform that carry the Imperial crest; you no longer have the right to bear it. You are no longer empowered to command any Imperial resource. You may divide among yourselves any ships berthed here and any personal items you desire from this fortress. You have one standard month to make your arrangements and to decide what you will do, where you will go. At the end of that time, this fortress will be blasted to fragments and its ruins sunk forever in the sea."

This, of course, caused a stir. The Inquisitors shifted uncomfortably, glancing at each other.

They had expected him to take an apprentice - or to kill them here and now. Vader had considered the latter. But he had decided that both options disgusted him. This was the simplest path, and a form of middle ground. Vader did not want the Inquisitors, so he would simply evict them from his life.

"Just like that, Lord Vader?" said Ninth Sister, the boldest of them. She looked like she was trying hard to figure something out. Given the limits of Dowutin minds, that wasn't unusual. "It's all over?"

"For you." He was surprised she hadn't already leapt at the chance to leave. Ninth Sister tended to speak her mind; she'd openly defied him on missions before. Apart from the foolish hope of advancement, there was nothing here for any of them to be attached to.

Twelfth Sister tilted her head. "What about the two Force-sensitive Rebels, my lord? We were about to go-"

"Leave them to me," said Vader. "Military Intelligence will find them, and I will kill them myself. _You_ have failed too often already."

He strode impatiently past them, deeper into the fortress. There was a lift that went down further than a lift ought to go, into the lightless underwater levels. Here he emerged into a different scene. A spartan training room, everything miniature sized. A dozen children of various species had been rounded up here for Vader's arrival, many in infancy and none more than eight years old. All of them wore black, stamped with the Imperial crest. Those old enough to do so were already kneeling. Two Nursemaids stood over them, red-garbed alien women with white, blank faces.

The adult Inquisitors were not the only ones who lived at this fortress. Palpatine had been interested in the threat posed by Force-sensitive children as well. Most of those had been killed, but a few promising ones were kept here, under the watchful eye of the Nursemaids, raised to believe in the Dark Side and to harness its strength for the Empire. His own little creche of dark younglings.

Vader hated to look at them. He had always spent as little time down here as he possibly could.

There was fear in their small minds, of course. Vader was not a fatherly figure to them, nor yet their master. The care and training of these children belonged solely to the Nursemaids. They knew nothing in their small lives but hate and fear, and Vader was merely a shadow who loomed in their peripheral vision, a slightly larger thing to fear than the others.

"You are aware," said Vader, "that this fortress is being disbanded. I have no further use for it."

The Nursemaids nodded attentively. "What of the pretty things, my Emperor?" said the elder of them - she meant the children. The Nursemaids were not, strictly speaking, entirely sane. "Are they not to your liking? Shall we dispose of them?"

" _No,_ " Vader growled. His hand went to his lightsaber's hilt without conscious volition, and he had to exert an effort not to light it immediately. "If I find you have done _that,_ I will hunt you down and your deaths will be slow. Take them away from here. If no Inquisitor wants them and no known family survives, find an Imperial orphanage. Tell no one of their origins."

He had turned and stalked back out of the room before either Nursemaid could reply.

Vader had no illusions about what he was doing. It was not an act of mercy. An Imperial orphanage would be slightly kinder to these children than a fortress made to break them to the Dark Side. They were not gentle places, but those that were run by the state, above-board, would at least attempt to give an education instead of selling them or putting them to work. But after what had been done to them already, these children's lives would never be safe. They might even hate him for this, believing what the Nursemaids had taught them, that their pain here was a part of a grand, dark destiny, and Vader had taken it from them. They might hate themselves, believing they'd been judged unworthy and cast aside.

He had done this, not for their sakes, but for himself. Vader couldn't help them. But he wanted never again to have to look into the face of a child he'd harmed.

*

Vader felt so ill as he stormed back onto the _Executor_ that he nearly stumbled. M4 met him in the hangar and trotted after him all the way to his quarters, asking if he was all right and how soon they were going to land on Mustafar. He shut his meditation chamber in her face.

He had thought he would feel better after doing this, but he did not.

This was what Tarkin had told him to do, wasn't it? Inspect each part of his life, one at a time, and remove whatever he didn't want. He'd known the Inquisitorius was a thing like that, and he'd made the decision himself, even before Tarkin said anything.

But he hadn't really removed it; he'd only ended its current form. Say for the sake of argument that Vader lived, and the thing from his dreams didn't get him, and from now on he got to do whatever he wanted forever. The Inquisitors and the children would still be out there in the galaxy, doing whatever their ruined minds drove them to do. He had no way to heal them. The only true way to remove the Inquisitorius from life would have been to travel in time, back to its beginning, and stop it from having occurred in the first place. There was a lot in that vein that Vader would have gone back and stopped if he could.

_Don't overwhelm yourself,_ Tarkin had said. He should have started with something smaller, maybe.

The fortress on Mustafar - Tarkin had made it sound so simple, a matter of replacing the furniture. Where was he supposed to start? The fortress was on Mustafar because Palpatine had deigned to give it to him. Palpatine had made Vader into what he was, a monster suited only for darkness and flame, which was why the fortress looked the way it did. Palpatine had designed the very suit Vader wore. Palpatine had _named_ him.

Even Tarkin was no exception. Tarkin was allowed to love Vader, in the first place, because Palpatine had judged him suitable. Tarkin was _capable_ of loving Vader because Palpatine, in a dozen small ways, had twisted Tarkin's mind. Palpatine had made Tarkin believe that it was all right to have a Vader in the world.

If Vader went through his life and tried to remove everything that should not be there, he would reduce himself to particles, and even then, he would not be made right. He could leap into his lava river and end it all in an instant, and that _still_ would not make anything right. Vader had broken so many parts of the world that would not grow back, whether he lived or died. To even try to fix them would be as insulting as what he'd done with the Nursemaids. A vague token effort that made nothing better, not even his own conscience. He could punish himself for his sins in every horrific way a Sith Lord knew, and it would be only a fraction of what he deserved, and would heal no one.

Vader had already known all of this. But it hurt him more, now, than it had hurt him while Palpatine lived. He did not know why.

He did not even know who to blame. Some of his crimes were things Palpatine had forced him to do. Some of them he'd done himself, out of his own cruel impatience and rage. Some of them he'd done because he believed in them for the moment, because Palpatine had made him believe. Most, he couldn't explain in any of these ways. He had stopped trying to explain it long ago. He just plowed on, being the monster he was, because it seemed better than stopping.

He wanted to stop now.

He wanted everything to stop.

Vader could not change time, but he wanted to go back, before the Sith, before the Jedi. He did not want to be a slave again, but he wanted that little boy he'd been. He wanted his mother, brushing his blond hair back from his unmarred face. _Don't cry, Ani. It was only a dream._

He couldn't have that, of course.

He had his own mangled present self, his suit, his fortress, his servants, M4, and the lava. He had the Dark Side, which had claimed him long ago. He had a galaxy he did not want, a galaxy already scarred and broken by his presence. A ghost that would come to him again when he slept, and enemies massing in the darkness beyond the known stars. A handful of Inquisitors whom he'd set free too late to do any good. And Tarkin, who loved him, but would never understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew. that. that was a lot.
> 
> in a lot of ways, "Darth Vader deposes his master and then has a massive mental breakdown" is... not an inaccurate one-sentence summary of my plan for this story. it's necessary to me for him to struggle in this way. he's going to learn and grow and be in a slightly better place by the end of the story, but even then it's not going to be a place where everything's fixed yet, or where anything's certain.
> 
> in any case, there will be some comfort for this hurt next chapter, but not until a good ways through the chapter, and we will not be out of the woods yet.
> 
> also, i like this revision & posting spree.
> 
> comments are love <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to Mustafar, Vader finds himself mentally breaking down, and Tarkin rushes to the fortress to intervene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey SERIOUS CONTENT WARNING for this chapter because this is the one where Tarkin has to talk Vader out of a suicidal breakdown. Naturally, since Vader is a very moderate and reasonable person despite his mental illness, and since Tarkin is endlessly enlightened and accommodating about th- wait, what's that you say? That's not who either of these murder boys have ever been as people? Well, _whoops._
> 
> Um anyway - Vader's not gonna die in this fic, and they're gonna sort a lot out by the end of the chapter, but it's heavy stuff. If this is a sensitive topic for you, or if you're shaky because of everything IRL being on fire, or if you just generally find heavy angst a little hard to deal with, please take care of yourselves. Maybe wait a bit if you need to! Have something calming nearby! If you've made it this far in this weird fic then I think you are worth it <3
> 
> Relatedly, this is a long-ass chapter! I've been aiming for chapters of like 3k-5k but this one is easily twice that size and it simply REFUSED to be cut down the middle.

Tarkin had to get back to his Imperial work promptly that morning, despite the obvious temptations. He allowed himself only a brief indulgence, holding Natasi close for a few more minutes as she blinked awake.

He was delighted with her. She was almost exactly as he remembered, beautiful and clever and strong and so fiercely devoted that it made something in him melt. She'd worked dutifully for him these whole three years - getting better results, by the sound of it, than men with more experience and more direct support. He couldn't wait to read her report in full. Obviously she didn't like how much had changed, but she'd adapted with breathtaking speed. So few people, even with coaching and time to prepare, could have withstood Vader's scrutiny as she did. And then the way she'd given in to him...

Tarkin loved the awful things that Vader did to him, but dominance was his more usual mode. And for the past three years, he'd had no one who truly desired that. Vader had been willing to experiment, and he'd shown vulnerability in ways that tantalized Tarkin's instincts, but Vader didn't like submission for its own sake. Natasi craved it in exactly the ways Tarkin liked best. It was like a breath of wild mountain air after months on a ship; he'd needed it more than he'd known.

And Natasi's body offered opportunities that Vader's had not. He felt slightly embarrassed at the animal need with which he'd pressed his skin to hers, kissed her mouth, run his hands through that delightful long red hair. It wasn't that Tarkin _couldn't_ touch Vader that way, but it was very different with him, requiring so much preparation and care and such a devastating height of vulnerability on Vader's part. With Natasi it was easy and natural. She'd shared his bed all night, which was delightful. Sleeping alongside Vader was functionally impossible, and Tarkin had nearly forgotten the feel of drifting off with a lover's yielding warmth in his arms.

Still, duty called, and he could not allow the Imperial schedule to run late. He stepped out of bed after only a minute or two, did his morning hygiene activities, and dressed. Natasi was used to this; most of the times they'd had together, over the years, had been stolen nights on missions. She put herself into order beside him, running a comb efficiently through that hair of hers and braiding it back up as he shaved his face.

"I'm going to order a Grand Admiral's uniform tailored to your measurements," he said as he slipped back into his royal robes. "You may hear about it from the appropriate aides later today. And I'm going to send the _Gorgon_ back to the Maw Cluster with your replacement. In the meantime, I want that full report by tonight. I imagine it won't be a difficulty, since you'll have been keeping notes for my return as instructed."

"Yes, sir," she said, pulling a crisp gray pair of uniform trousers on. She had folded her admiral's uniform neatly, last night; it was in good condition, but it was the uniform she'd worn all through the journey to Coruscant, and it bore the telltale rumples of travel. Some serving droid had removed it in the night and replaced it with a fresh one in the same style.

"When you have a steadier assignment I'll find you a work space of your own, but for today you can work in the office attached to this suite. Call for a serving droid if you need anything; you'll find we're very well supplied. If you're finished before fourteen hundred, message me. Otherwise, when the report's done, you have the rest of the day free. Go exploring. Enjoy being on a civilized planet again. I have a busy day ahead and a dinner at the COMPNOR arcology, but I'll want you back here at twenty-one hundred." He favored her with a predator's smile. "For relaxation."

Her smile back at him was small - Natasi was accustomed to not smiling where people could see - but it practically glowed. "Yes, sir."

He pulled her in for a last, long, hungry kiss before they went their separate ways.

The first thing on Tarkin's agenda for the day was a meeting over breakfast with several governors or their representatives from worlds in the Mid and Outer Rims and the Expansion Region, who'd been hard pressed by the recent lack of a Senate and who were in more danger than Core Worlders from the recent restless activity at the Empire's borders. This was an informal meeting, and he planned to hear out their concerns, with Nemeus taking notes, while promising little. The new Ruling Council would take these and other sets of interests into account when meeting more formally to work on their most pressing task: the design of some smaller, streamlined, more obedient legislative body to replace the Senate. Tarkin had hoped that fear of the Death Star would be enough to keep the local governors in line, but of course that hadn't worked out, so they must bow to necessity.

He was still in the midst of the meeting - not quite finished with the sumptuous meal before him, only partway through his caf, and certainly not even a little bit done hearing the governors' long lists of complaints - when one of his comms secretaries slipped into the room. She was a woman in her late thirties, light-haired, crisp and expressionless. She walked straight to Tarkin's place at the table and bent down to whisper to him, covering her mouth.

"My lord," she said, "we have an incoming transmission on your private line with an emergency priority mark. From Mustafar. Will you take it at this time?"

Tarkin blinked, concerned, and turned to whisper back. Vader had a tendency towards dramatics, and he had said he would make contact later. But even Vader's most anguished and overblown calls had never carried this mark before. This was a mark that indicated immediate danger to lives. If Vader was using it just because he wanted attention, he would have to be _sternly_ talked down.

But maybe he wasn't. Maybe it wasn't just that.

"It's Vader?" he asked.

The aide's voice betrayed no emotion. "No, my lord, it's a 2-1B-type medical droid. She says she'll speak only to you."

Tarkin's blood ran cold.

A medical emergency, then. It was his fault. He'd pushed Vader much too hard yesterday, one stressful Imperial task after another, and Natasi at the end of it. He'd known Vader was still in recovery from terrible injuries. He'd told himself not to push too hard, but each next little thing had seemed so important at the time, and it wasn't as though Vader had asked to stop.

It wasn't though Vader was the sort of person who knew _how_ to ask to stop.

Tarkin stood out of his chair. He betrayed no emotion but a vague, lordly briskness. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to take a call. Nemeus will continue to note down your concerns and report to me. Good day."

He swept out of the room, accompanied by his Guards - they really did not know when to give up, these Royal Guards - and into the nearest unused office with a suitable comms console.

When he was alone in it, he locked the door. He took a breath. He pressed the key to accept the transmission.

"Hi, Emperor Tarkin," said M4, appearing in hologram form before him. Her body language was unreadable. "Sorry, you're probably really busy with emperor things, but I think you need to come over. Like. Now."

"It's Vader, isn't it?" He wouldn't show fear on his face, even for her. "What's gone wrong?"

"Well, we got home." M4 waved her hands in an odd manner, jerkily. He still couldn't read her. "Finally. We got off the shuttle and into the fortress. And I wanted to get Lord Vader back into his bacta tank, which he _really needs._ Instead he just stormed off in the other direction and shut himself up in his meditation chamber on the first floor. He locked himself in. He found some way to override the codes that'll let me open it and get him. I'm trying to talk to him through the chamber walls but he's barely responding."

Tarkin frowned. Had she called him with this priority mark simply over a tantrum? He was disappointed with both of them, if that was the case.

"First he was saying he didn't want to go in the bacta tank," M4 continued before Tarkin could respond. "Then he said he didn't want to go to sleep. Then he said that he's the Emperor and he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, even to take care of himself. He won't take a sedative, he won't take his other meds, he won't even tell me what he's upset about. All he does is keep escalating. Now it's that he doesn't _want_ to be Emperor, or in a relationship with you, or himself, or alive. It's that last one especially. He's asking me to give him reasons why he shouldn't just die." She waved her limbs again in that odd way. "And of course I have programming for that! I'm a medical droid built to attend to one of the galaxy's most notoriously mentally unstable patients, of _course_ I do! I have a long list of ways to talk down a patient in crisis before they do anything stupid. But none of it's working. I've tried everything. Except calling you."

Tarkin felt he had frozen entirely. He understood the emergency priority mark now. "I see."

"I know you and me haven't always seen eye to eye, Governor Tarkin. In fact, I'm kind of mad at you right now. But Lord Vader listens to you."

Tarkin worked his jaw. "Do you think it's wise to call me in? When he says he doesn't want a relationship with me? I'm concerned some of whatever's bothering him may be my doing."

"Yeah, but I don't know what else I can try." She made that jerky motion again. Tarkin was beginning to understand it. It was the droid version of the way a human might move shakily, stilt their speech, when they were near tears out of worry and frustration. "Or you could always try, I don't know, _apologizing._ "

Tarkin chose to ignore that barb. "If I leave immediately, even on a fast ship, I won't make it there until evening. Can you patch me through to him from here?"

M4 shook her head. "The meditation chambers aren't built that way. This isn't supposed to _happen._ "

Tarkin quickly ran through today and tomorrow's schedule in his head. It was a busy schedule, but with some effort, he could delegate or postpone it all. He could tell Natasi he wouldn't be able to meet her tonight. Leaving for a short visit to Vader now would not be pretty, but he could do it.

"But he can hear you when you speak to him through the chamber walls," Tarkin said.

"Yeah."

He took a short breath, making up his mind. "Tell Vader that I'm on my way. If he wants a reason to live, tell him _I_ said he should, and I think this display is ridiculous. If he wants more reasons, we can discuss it when I arrive. Until then, I expect him to at least take his medicines, fluids, and nutrients as normal. If I arrive and find he hasn't, or that he's harmed himself in any way, I will be _very_ displeased. Tell him all of that."

"Thank you," M4 muttered. She looked drained. "You have to understand, I've taken care of Lord Vader for fifteen years. And there were limits on how I could do that, you know? Lord Vader's used to being controlled all sorts of ways. I couldn't always help." She made another of those distraight, jerky movements. "But for all these years, I... I thought he understood I was on his side. I didn't think he thought I was one of those people. Controlling him."

Tarkin sized her up. He didn't know what could have gone wrong between M4 and Vader. M4 had told him once that she loved Vader: not the way humans loved each other, but some other way, something only a droid could understand. If something happened to Vader, what happened to her? She'd been built specifically for his individual needs. Without him, would it be possible to repurpose her for other medical work, or would she have to be wiped and reprogrammed completely?

"Keep doing your work," he said, unable to come up with any better comfort. "I'll get to the bottom of this."

*

He got on a fast ship. He took as much work with him on his datapad as he could, but there was a limit to what could be done in hyperspace, and he couldn't keep his mind on it. He was furious with himself and furious with Vader.

Tarkin was not even a little bit Force-sensitive, but he'd had a vision once, while trapped with Vader in a strange Sith temple. The temple had invited him to ask a question, and he'd asked how he could fix what was wrong with Vader. He hadn't gotten a proper answer, only a disorienting montage of all the different traumas in Vader's life, too fast and numerous to be a coherent story. And the vision's last image had been an image of Tarkin himself, stamping with his Grand Moff's boots on Vader's masked face. Not fixing, but compounding the harm.

When Vader first asked Tarkin to help him overthrow Palpatine, Tarkin had nearly declined. And that vision had been one of his reasons. Vader knew he would become Emperor in Palpatine's stead, but he had not primarily wanted power; he had mainly wanted to save himself from mistreatment. And Tarkin feared that such mistreatment could also come from his own hands. What if they did it, what if he betrayed all his principles and committed treason for Vader's sake, only to find that Vader wasn't better off this way at all?

That was one of the reasons why he had been so careful. He had emphasized Vader's authority at every turn, even when it would have been politically easier not to. He had presented Vader as Emperor to all the people who would take orders from him and had them all practice doing so. He would _not_ take advantage of Vader's good will. He would not be another man like Palpatine, using Vader as a servant, ordering him this way and that. He would explicitly make room for Vader to take all the power he deserved.

And by doing so, he'd pushed too hard. He'd harmed Vader anyway.

Last night, he'd told Natasi that he trusted Vader to grow into his new role. Just as she herself had grown so quickly into command. He'd been sure of it then. But there was a risk inherent in giving new roles to people, even gifted people, in watching them have to push themselves to learn. People could be pushed too far. People could break.

By the time his shuttle landed on the usual pad in front of Fortress Vader, jutting out from the red-orange lava river, Tarkin had worked himself into a foul mood indeed. He squared his shoulders in the sweltering heat and waited as the thick black portcullis rose to admit him.

"Emfour," he barked as the medical droid hurried up to greet him. "Status report."

"About the same as before, Emperor Tarkin. He's still in there. He's saying the same things. He did take his meds and food and fluids, at least, when I said that you told him to. But I had to leave the room so he could yank them into the chamber with him without being disturbed."

That was what Tarkin had hoped for, but it was puzzling. Vader had said he no longer wanted to be with Tarkin, yet he'd obeyed Tarkin's secondhand orders, even when he wouldn't obey M4's. That meant there was hope for Tarkin to further intervene; it also meant something was going on in Vader's head, with regards to Tarkin specifically, that Tarkin did not yet understand.

He turned and strode into the hall where Vader's meditation chamber was housed; Tarkin had been to this fortress many times, and he knew its layout. "Fine. Leave us."

M4 looked as though she still dearly wanted to be involved. "But-"

He swiveled on his heel to glare directly down at her. "You tried it your way. If Vader wants _me,_ then we'll do it in mine."

M4 made a dispirited noise. "Suit yourself, Emperor Tarkin."

Tarkin let her stew in the hall, and he strode to the door at the hall's far end, which led to the meditation room itself.

It was a smallish room by Fortress Vader's standards, square and deep black. On spaceships, Vader's meditation chamber was placed in his quarters, with plenty of room around it for other functions. At the fortress, there was no need for that; this chamber was solely for midday meditations. Times when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts without getting all the way out of his armor and into the tank. There was nothing in this room but the chamber itself, black and shining and angular like the shell of some great sea-beast. It was shut, of course; Tarkin only knew Vader was in there because he heard Vader's breath from inside.

"Well, I'm here," he said, standing in front of the chamber's bulk. "What's all this about?"

There was a pause, long enough for him to wonder if Vader was going to refuse to speak to him, before he heard Vader's voice. It was muffled by the chamber's shell, but those familiar deep tones carried well enough. "You should not be here."

"Why not?"

"There is nothing you can do. You cannot fix me."

Tarkin scowled, remembering his vision. "I won't argue that. But Emfour is capable of fixing at least some of your current injury and fatigue, which will make everything else easier by association, and you're apparently refusing to let her. So, at minimum, I want to know _why_ you have suddenly decided that it's necessary to make such a childish display."

"Do you think I never wanted to do this before?"

Tarkin thought about it, his unease growing. Vader had access, of course, to deadly weapons and potent medicines, and to enormous amounts of molten lava. He was heavily dependent on life support and fully capable of removing himself from it. If Vader had wholeheartedly wanted to die before, he surely would have found a way. But while Palpatine lived, if he'd had an episode like _this_ \- wavering, feeling the temptation strongly enough that he no longer saw the point in work or in medical care - he might well have suppressed it. Not because he had any better alternatives, but because he knew how he would be punished for intransigence.

No one could punish Vader anymore. But that meant all the especially awful things Vader had wanted to do to himself or to others, the things he'd refrained from doing out of simple fear... all of them were likely to come out in new ways over the next few days or weeks.

This was not good at all.

"I've communicated only briefly with Emfour," Tarkin said, "so let me make sure I have the facts correct. She says you've told her that you don't want to be Emperor, nor a Sith, nor in a relationship with me, nor alive. Are those statements correct?"

Vader hesitated only briefly. "Yes."

"And you also didn't want to get into your bacta tank or sleep."

"Yes."

"Do you care to tell me why you don't want them?"

"You cannot understand."

Tarkin gave the meditation chamber a flat look. "Try me."

"I do not want anything. Everything in me is broken and none of it can be fixed. You cannot understand this. You are a person who looks at broken things and thinks they are whole."

Tarkin raised an eyebrow irately. Vader did not seem particularly whole to him at the moment. "Well, then, let me tell you how this looks to me. You are physically ill, and you've been through an incredible emotional shock with the death of your master. You've been pushed too hard to step into your new Imperial role when you weren't finished healing from either of those things. That was largely my doing, and I apologize. I am sorry, Vader. I was overeager and overstepped. I did not want this to happen. But as a result of my actions, you're now not thinking clearly. Your body is exhausted and your mind has trouble coping as a result. Am I wrong?"

"You are technically correct, and you are missing the point. Go away."

"I will not." Tarkin raised a hand and counted items on his fingers. "Let me address your specific complaints. If you don't want to be Emperor, you don't have to. You must realize you've qualified for a medical discharge from Imperial service several hundred times over. You could retire with a generous pension and do nothing but fix droids and pursue your kinks all day, or you could choose another career. If you don't want to be Sith, you can change your religion; I don't care. If you don't want to be with me, I will be _very_ unhappy, but I won't force you." He dropped his hand. "But I will not let you permanently abdicate yourself from any of those things _now,_ Vader, not while you're in this mental state. You are simply not thinking clearly at this time. Go and let Emfour put you in your tank, and wait until your body and brain are stabilized at an appropriate baseline. _Then_ we can talk about what you do and don't want for your future."

"I will not," said Vader.  "Go bother your other lover.  _She_ wants to live."

Tarkin crossed his arms. "Is this about Admiral Daala? It had better not be. I gave you the chance to forbid that through proper channels and you refused."

"It is not." Vader hesitated. "It is mostly not. I do not like that she is here. But I would be equally broken without her. The other problems would remain."

"Well, then. I note that you haven't contradicted any of my points. You've only asserted that you feel broken and told me to go away. Am I correct in assuming this is because you don't _have_ a counterargument to my points?"

"My counterargument," said Vader, "is that I can choke you to death without having to open this chamber."

"But you won't," Tarkin said confidently. Inside, he felt a faint doubt. Tarkin had talked Vader down before from trying to strangle him, from strangling third parties, even on one occasion from sexual assault. There was a technique to it, but technique wasn't everything. Primarily, Vader listened to Tarkin because he _liked_ Tarkin. There'd been a mutual respect. If that had somehow changed, then all bets were off.

But he could not let his fear make him hesitant. That was a part of the Theory Of Dealing With Vader, too. He would not show his belly like prey.

"Let me check something before I move on to my next tactic," said Tarkin. His arms were still crossed. His voice was cold. M4, no doubt, had already tried appealing to normal things like how much hope there was for Vader's future, how much his scant number of loved ones cared. Tarkin could not bring himself to soften that much. He was angry and upset, and the two of them were better accustomed to harshness. "If I were to do as you say and leave - which I will not - what would your plans be after that?"

Vader hesitated a little longer than was really reasonable. "I do not know."

"But I'm guessing they don't involve allowing yourself to be put in your tank properly or receive medical care."

"Dogs are put down," said Vader. "When they are too broken to work. Even if it makes nothing better. It is a mercy."

"I know what people say about you, Vader, but you're not a dog. Nor are you of sound enough mind now to make that decision."

"I have never been of sound mind," Vader snarled. "Not as long as you've known me."

"But, again, you haven't contradicted me. You know I'm right."  Tarkin sat himself down with his back against the black wall. The room was so small that he could have reached out and touched the meditation chamber's surface from here. "Then it would seem we're at a stalemate. You don't intend to budge, and neither do I. But you've made a tactical error, my dear. You've boxed yourself in."

"I am in here because I want to be in here. Alone."

"I'm sure. But as a location to fortify, this has several disadvantages. Should things go wrong, you have no escape route that doesn't lead past me. The walls of this chamber stop anyone from seeing or touching you, but that isn't your primary concern right now, is it? Words are what people throw at you at a time like this. Your hearing still works, and so does your sense of my mind. And you're up against an adversary more patient than you. That's a poor setup for any siege."

Vader sounded even sulkier than before. "I can murder you in worse ways than choking."

"Yes, you can do all sorts of dreadful things to me with the Force. I'm aware. But I know you, Vader, after all this time. I know what you're weak to. Watch this. Watch my mind."

Vader did not answer. Tarkin, sitting there on the floor,  closed his eyes and took ten very deep breaths. For this to work, he would need to control himself utterly. He was only about sixty percent certain he could do it. He had other contingencies in mind if it failed - he'd had a lot of time to think about this - but most of them weren't any better.

After the tenth breath, he felt that his anger was better contained. Where there had been an icy, stubborn, snap-tongued force, there was now something no less cold but more easily put aside.

He put it aside. He reached out with his hand, eyes closed, and placed his palm flat on the meditation chamber's surface. Taking another deep breath, he visualized Vader's masked face in front of him.

Vader kept saying he liked the way Tarkin looked at him. Most of the time, looking at Vader that way wasn't something he did on purpose. But Tarkin had learned that sometimes he could create the effect deliberately. He could focus affection and desire in his mind, and because minds were visible to Vader, Vader would see them. It was a clumsy process, but Vader sometimes reacted to it strongly. Tarkin had seduced him with nothing but a look before, vividly imagining the wicked things he wanted to do, holding those imaginings up to the light.

He didn't think of anything wicked this time. That wouldn't have been appropriate, given that Vader claimed he didn't want to be in a relationship anymore - and _that_ was a part of this that Tarkin was deliberately not thinking about yet. Instead, with all the focus he could muster, Tarkin visualized specific examples of how he cared about Vader. How he wanted Vader to live.

That first minute in the throne room, seeing both bodies dismembered on the floor, hearing the squeak of the broken ventilator as he'd rushed to Vader's side. The fear he'd felt. The things he'd said, for those few seconds before the medtechs caught up to them, reassuring Vader that help was on its way, not knowing if Vader could hear him. And yet, deep below it, the secret exultation. They'd done it. Palpatine was gone. Palpatine would never control Vader again. All that remained now was to hold what they'd taken.

He called to mind the moment, a week later, when M4 had called and told him that Vader's vital signs were out of the danger zone; he wasn't conscious yet, but he was definitely going to live. The sheer relief.

The time, on an abortive mission to an ice moon, when he'd curled for warmth against a barely-conscious Vader while waiting for help to arrive. Vader had gone without his medicines and nutrients on that mission; he'd had a very severe dissociative episode, in addition to frostbite, and he'd had part of his life energy drained. By the end of it, Tarkin had never seen him so weak. He remembered the way the Imperial shuttle had looked when it at last touched down. Relief and hope. The warmth inside the ship, how it had felt to be warm again. And the way he'd felt looking at Vader in the shuttle back to Mustafar, when it was clear Vader was going to pull through.

But it was not only when Vader was injured or endangered that Tarkin felt tenderness like that. Vader suffered, in one way or another, all the time. Tarkin always wanted to be worthy of holding that pain; and he always wanted Vader, paradoxically, to be well.

He remembered the first time he'd seen Vader unmasked, inside his meditation chamber, in the now-uninhabitable beach house on Scarif. Behind the mask, Vader's face was not only scarred and sickly, but also expressive in a way Tarkin would never have guessed until he saw it. In that face there had been such fear, vulnerability, need, and Tarkin had drank them all in. He'd let the tips of his fingers, in fascination, brush Vader's scarred cheek. It had been breathtaking. Tarkin had seen Vader's bare face many times since then, but he always felt the echoes of that first time. Vader's face was a delicious, fragile secret that they both kept between them.

Vader was a broken man, but he was so _alive_ in his brokenness, so vital and strong. That was worth something, surely. _Vader_ was worth something. And Vader did not have to shut Tarkin out when he felt weak. Tarkin had seen that side of him, too, and had loved him all the more.

At last Vader's voice rumbled out to him again. "I will not come out. But you may come in."

"All right," said Tarkin, suppressing a flutter of triumph. It had _worked._

The meditation chamber whirred and eased itself open. Before it was finished, Vader picked him up impatiently with the Force and pulled him inside.

Vader's meditation chambers were black on the outside, but stark white on the inside. They contained various readouts and buttons, mechanical arms with which to take off the heaviest parts of Vader's armor, shelves on which the armor could be stored, and a padded chair in the center which could lean itself backwards to become a spartan bunk. There were lights, but they dimmed themselves to a sepulchral red when the chamber clicked shut.

Vader held him out of the way of the machines while the chamber repressurized itself. As soon as the top of his helmet had been pulled away, before the machine even took his shoulder plate or chest armor, he tugged his mask off and looked up to meet Tarkin's gaze.

He was as incapable of filtering his facial expressions as ever. And perhaps he was aware of it this time; perhaps that was why he wanted Tarkin to see him unmasked. A blast of emotion for a blast of emotion.  The anguish in Vader's expression was plain and stark and helpless. Tarkin had seen him as nakedly distraught as this before, but not often. Usually only in their exposure therapy, when he was losing control of himself to some awful memory, immersed in a Vader-sized grief.

Tarkin wanted to reach out and touch him, to run his fingertips lightly down that ravaged cheek again, but he couldn't do that while he was floating here. He wasn't sure if he was allowed to do it at all.

After a minute, the machines finished with Vader's armor and he tugged Tarkin possessively down. He had kept the chair in its upright position, and Tarkin came to rest astride Vader's knees. His own face was abruptly very close to Vader's. This was distracting and confusing. If Vader didn't want to be with him, then Tarkin shouldn't be on Vader's lap like this, surely. But he wanted to be.

"I love you," Tarkin said, feeling as though the words had burst out without his conscious volition. A normal person would have led with this, instead of using battle as a metaphor. Tarkin had been too angry. It had seemed easier to fling the feelings out telepathically than to say them aloud and sound foolish, weak. But it seemed that this mental technique was double-edged. To make Vader feel these things, Tarkin had to feel them too, intensely, unfiltered. And they were all true. "I don't want you to go."

"There is nothing worth loving,"  said Vader. His voice was weak and reedy without the mask, and his expression was so desperately sad. Crying was one of the many things Vader's body could no longer do, but his face still went through some of its preliminary motions at times. Tarkin wasn't sure if he knew he was doing it.

There had to be some way they could communicate better. Vader believed, a priori, that Tarkin could not understand. So he was being unhelpful and making blanket statements like these, or telling Tarkin to go away, instead of explaining. Tarkin would have to dig for an explanation anyway.

"Let's say I took your statements at face value," said Tarkin. "Let's take it as given that you presently want to die, because you feel broken and unworthy, and you don't believe anything will help. What does that mean? Explain it to me like I'm a droid who doesn't know anything. What would it look like if you _weren't_ broken past fixing? If there was something that could make you worth loving, in your own opinion, what would it be?"

Vader gave him a strange look, as if he'd expected a question like that, and yet as if it somehow disappointed him. But he answered, his scarred lip quivering. "I would be Anakin Skywalker again."

"But you are," said Tarkin in surprise. _This_ was interesting. Vader had always spoken of his past self like a dead man, some other man. But Tarkin had thought that was an affectation. A way of cleanly separating his life as a Sith Lord from his prior life, and of keeping his old identity private, not a factual truth. "Just because you changed your name doesn't mean-"

"I am not," Vader insisted, cutting him off. "He is dead. I killed him, and I cannot have him back."

Tarkin reached forward, impulsively, and tried touching Vader's face. Only the lightest brush with his fingertips. Vader didn't flinch away, but leaned into it. Tarkin thought he was beginning, very faintly, to understand.

It had been nineteen years ago, the day the Empire rose, that Vader had taken his current name. Nearly every possible loss in Vader's old life had happened in a single day. The loss of that old name and his religion and his friends; the permanent loss of health from having fallen in the lava. And his wife and unborn child - a loss for which, rightly or wrongly, Vader blamed himself.

Palpatine had been the one who named Vader anew on that day. Palpatine had engineered the Jedi's deaths, and Tarkin would not be surprised if he'd engineered more. He'd spent the rest of his life making Vader's existence a misery. Killing Palpatine prevented further loss, but it couldn't undo those losses that had already occurred. It couldn't give Vader back the life he might have had if he'd not become a Sith. Perhaps all Vader was doing, with this massive display of dramatics, was mourning for himself. For his own lost innocence, which he had not been permitted to mourn before - or at least, not in this way.

"That's funny," said Tarkin, stroking lightly down the side of Vader's face. "I knew you when you were Anakin. I liked you even then, the first time we met. And I don't think you died, or killed that self. I still see it in you all the time.  When you make your most execrable jokes, when you fly like a madman, when you've dived into danger to save me without a second thought. You look different now, of course; you've become more dangerous and crueller, but that's a rational response to the circumstances you've found yourself in. You've been tested by fire and adapted in ways no one expected you could, and that's not death, it's life.  It's _strength._ That's one of the things I love about you. How alive you are, in spite of it all."

Vader's expression was strange and conflicted.  He looked as though he wanted so badly to believe it, and yet didn't dare.

He wavered that way for a breathless moment, and then he abruptly looked down. "Even if that were true, it would not matter. Even if I did not choose to die, you would not have me alive for long."

Tarkin drew himself up, disturbed "What do you mean?"

Vader appeared to struggle with himself a moment longer before making a decision. "I will tell you this. But not Emfour. She cannot know."

"Vader, did Emfour _do_ something? Is that why you won't talk to her? She's somewhat hurt about all this."

Vader shook his head. "Nothing of note. But she is empowered now to give me psychiatric treatment. If I tell her this, she will not believe it. She will think I am-"

 _Crazy,_ Tarkin mentally filled in. Well, he couldn't blame M4's hypothetical self for thinking it. Vader was very clearly mentally unwell. But Vader _always_ saw and heard things others couldn't, even very strange things, because of the Force. He deserved to be heard out about them.

"I don't think you're giving her enough credit, Vader. She's known you a long time. And it's not generally a good idea to hide information from one's doctors. But if that's your wish, I'll honor it. If you tell me something in confidence, I won't repeat it to her."

Vader's eyes narrowed. "You cannot tell Admiral Daala, either."

Tarkin frowned, abashed, but nodded. "All right. What's this thing no one else can know?"

"I do not think my master is dead."

This was not at all what Tarkin had expected. "Vader," he said carefully, "I don't know how much of that battle you remember, but I was there. I saw what was left of him. It took delicate work to scrape up all the pieces and fit them into a casket for the funeral. There was certainly no viable brain left, not in one piece or even two. I don't see how he could possibly be alive."

"His body is dead," said Vader. "Some other part of him lives. Immaterially."

Tarkin frowned more deeply. Vader had always told him that neither Sith nor Jedi believed in an afterlife. There was an energy that made up souls, but when people died it dissolved into the surrounding universe. Jedi considered that a meaningful continued existence, though without the individual qualities that defined the person in life. Sith considered it death, total and permanent.

"What makes you think so?" Tarkin asked.

"I have seen him in my dreams," said Vader. "There is a presence that follows me into my sleep. It feels like him. It struggles with me. I cannot make it go away. I have dreamt it every night since my master died, every time I sleep. And my waking feelings tell me it is real. Some part of him has survived, and it will have me."

Tarkin drew back, digesting that rather appalling idea. No wonder Vader hadn't wanted to sleep. Everyone should have paid more attention to that part, perhaps.

He could see why Vader had not expected to be believed. Vader was dealing with significant trauma and grief. Strange dreams at such times were to be expected. This might be a recurring nightmare stemming from misplaced guilt or any number of other disturbances. Some repressed part of Vader's mind, profoundly accustomed to Palpatine's control, unable to believe it was over.

Yet Vader was the most Force-sensitive person in the galaxy. He'd had prophetic dreams before. He felt things all the time that were outlandish and improbable and true. Vader wasn't infallible, but neither was a sharp-eyed man pointing out figures on the horizon. It would be foolish to dismiss either one.

And if it _was_ real -

That possibility sent a chill down Tarkin's spine. He could not ignore it. A threat like this had to be addressed using all resources available. If it was unreal, it must be proven unreal beyond doubt. If it _was_ real, it _must_ be destroyed.

"I thought you said Sith didn't believe in an afterlife," said Tarkin.

"I did not believe in one," Vader said flatly. "But it would not be the first time he has hidden something from me."

"Why do you think he attacks you? What does he want? Revenge?"

"I do not know. Not fully." Vader's eyes bored into Tarkin's in the dim red light, wide and fearful. "But I think that he wants to consume me. To erase my mind and replace it with his own. He would be alive again then, though in a wretched form. He would be Emperor. And if that occurred, there would be nothing left of Anakin Skywalker, none of those echoes that you think you see. Nothing that could love you. Only him. Forever."

Whether it was true or not, that was a horrible idea. To think Vader had been dealing with it alone all this time. He'd fought this fight on his night in the Imperial Palace while Tarkin quibbled about what room he was put in to fight it. No wonder Vader hadn't seemed to care about those surface things. No wonder it was eroding his will to live.

"Well, then," Tarkin said coldly. He leaned in, bringing his face as close to Vader's as he dared. "It seems both you and Palpatine have forgotten about _me._ I don't leave tasks unfinished. You and I agreed we would destroy him. If he isn't destroyed yet, then it falls to us to finish the job. Together."

"This is a matter of the Force. What can _you_ do?"

"Reconnaisance, to begin with. There's a group of Palpatine's acolytes out in the Unknown Regions who were given information you and I don't possess. We also have access to all the personal data that Palpatine kept in sensible places like the Imperial Palace. I already had a pair of aides assigned to looking through those files for anything useful. We'll step up those efforts with a renewed focus on any doctrines to do with life after death."

Vader looked up at him, sullen, stubborn, wavering. He reached up, hesitantly, and clasped Tarkin's arm.

"It will not work," he said.

"You don't know that. We don't yet fully understand what we're dealing with. When we do understand, we'll know its weaknesses. Its tactics. We'll have that much more room to maneuver. I can do a great deal of this for you, Vader. I can command the military and investigative forces that will give us the information we need. Do you understand? We command an entire Empire, and if it takes the full weight of that Empire's resources to save you, I will do it." He leaned forward and let his forehead touch Vader's, nose to nose. "But I _must_ have your cooperation. One way or another this will require your abilities in the Force, as well as your expertise in Sith matters. I will need you in top form. If you give up before we've begun, if you wallow and surrender and destroy yourself before this fight even takes its final shape, then you'll doom us both. I forbid you to do that. You are _better_ than that."

Something went out of Vader then, some useless vestige of stubbornness. He broke Tarkin's gaze. "It will not work. But I will do as you say."

Tarkin tried not to be disappointed with that answer. Vader was still exhausted and in dire health. It might be a while before he was capable of optimism. Cooperation mattered more for now.

"I understand now why you didn't want to go in your tank and sleep," said Tarkin. "But I'm afraid there's no help for it; you need the bacta treatment and the rest to survive. Is there something Emfour can give you to help with the dreams? A drug to keep you out of that phase of sleep, perhaps. You wouldn't have to tell her what you told me in order to ask for that. You could simply tell her you've had nightmares. Would that help?"

Vader looked dubious. "I will think about it."

Tarkin knew better than to push any harder than that. "Either way, we'll focus on getting you well and defeating this ghost. And when that's done, we can talk about the rest of it. About what you want your future to look like, what you want to do with your freedom, how you see yourself and so on. I think you have more choice in those matters than you want to believe. But first things first."

Vader looked up at him again, seeming at least partly mollified. "As you say. At least you are mine."

Tarkin gave in to temptation and shifted on Vader's lap, letting himself press a soft kiss to Vader's forehead. He hadn't wanted to focus on the relationship part of this. It wasn't helpful to demand that Vader clarify if they were breaking up or not, when Vader wasn't thinking clearly anyway and meanwhile there were actual lives at stake. But it was an immense relief to hear that phrase. Vader probably felt it.

"And will you remember this," he chided gently, "next time there's something important going on that you think I won't understand?"

Vader smiled up at him, deep affection laced with the bitterest irony. "My love. You still do not."

*

"Well, I'm glad you're back here, Lord Vader," said M4 as she undressed him for the tank. "I think we need to talk about how this went, okay? But later. When you've rested. I don't think it would do any good to try to talk about it right now."

Her tone was still notably sulky. Vader knew she hadn't liked his earlier tantrum. M4 was used to Vader doing as she said, trusting her voice even in his most dangerous and dissociative states. But lately Vader wasn't keen on the idea of doing as _anyone_ said. She'd coaxed and commanded and pleaded with him, but none of her reasons why Vader ought to care for his own life had moved him, and he'd taken a perverse, rebellious pleasure in ignoring her. It wasn't really her fault.

Vader didn't have it in him to apologize, and an apology wouldn't undo today's events anyway. Today would simply have to stand, like everything else he'd done to hurt people.

He had been thinking about Tarkin's suggestions, but he was not sure he wanted drugs to keep him from dreaming. They probably existed. M4 probably knew where to get them. But would that make the apparition go away, or would it render him blind and unable to defend himself when it came? Vader didn't want to risk it.

Vader was still not completely sure that the apparition was Palpatine. It might be something else - some other invading entity that his mind had misidentified. Something older than his master, though Sith in nature. Something in disguise. But he had not wanted to voice those possibilities to Tarkin, not when he was already so afraid of being misbelieved. Tarkin had promised to help, and Vader could feel that the promise was sincere. But he also felt that Tarkin harbored private doubts.

"Emfour," he said instead, "do you still have my armband?"

Not long before they decided to overthrow Palpatine, Tarkin had given Vader an armband to wear. It was made of Tyrian shimmersilk, a soft texture that had delighted Vader, and it was dyed dove-gray, which was Tarkin's favorite color. He'd chosen a band for the upper arm, rather than a ring or some other token, so that Vader could feel it its pleasant texture with his living skin. Vader had sewn the silk into his suit's inner lining, so that he'd think of Tarkin with every movement, even in the weeks when Tarkin wasn't there. But then Palpatine had been annoyed by it, so he'd taken it back out.

"Not on me, Lord Vader, but I think we still have it in storage. Why?"

"I want it sewn back into the lining of my suit," said Vader. "See it done."

M4 paused briefly. "Sure, Lord Vader. As you wish."

Vader still wasn't sure he really wanted to stay alive. He didn't have much hope. But it would be good, he thought, to remind himself that there was someone who did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew!
> 
> Shout-out to NoisyBird who asked if the shimmersilk was coming back. I almost forgot about it :3
> 
> I've been thinking of this chapter as the end of Act One in a rough two-act structure. There won't be an "intermission" worth speaking of because I am still on my revision & posting spree, and I will probably have chapter 11 out relatively soon. But feel free to take an intermission break anyway! Stretch your legs. Have a snack. Hug a stuffed animal. (Wash your hands.) We're gonna make it through this.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admiral Daala readjusts to life on Coruscant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heh, turns out there *is* an intermission but it's literally just natasi daala giving herself some retail therapy

Daala received the message stating that an emergency had come up at Fortress Vader and that Tarkin would not, in fact, be back for her by twenty-one hundred tonight. She stared at her datapad and tried not to feel the wave of resentment that crashed over her. It had always been like this with Tarkin. Important men had responsibilities. Things came up. After waiting for three years, a day's delay ought to feel like nothing. Instead it hurt more than it had ever used to hurt.

Some foolish, girlish thing deep down had hoped there would be no more waiting.

She read it again, then took a breath and refocused. There was a report to write. As Tarkin had predicted, it was easy work, since she'd kept meticulous notes. She concentrated on organizing those notes and summarizing them in the most efficient way, and she tried very hard not to feel like she was in two places at once. Sifting through the scientists' work and attending to the routines of the soldiers who guarded them, just as she'd done for those three years, hidden away between the black holes. Waiting for the day Tarkin returned to evaluate what she had done, and not knowing just when that would be.

When she felt too much like that, she walked into the sitting room and looked out the window. There was daylight now. The bustle of Coruscant both appalled and delighted her. So many civilians of so many kinds and species, going about their random, inefficient lives. It was definitely not the Maw. She looked forward to exploring it.

There were also the serving droids, and even a pair of palace servants who bustled in at one point, apologizing for the interruption, saying they'd been sent to take her measurements for a Grand Admiral's uniform. She tolerated their attentions with cold politeness. Daala's promotions often didn't feel real to her until she was at the helm of a ship. In battle her rank was real and powerful, and she loved it fiercely. In between missions, though, she often felt more like a doll Tarkin had dressed up in military clothes.

As for the droids, they were capabile of delivering literally any delicacy she liked from the palace's kitchens, as well as a bewildering host of toiletries, tools, and personal services that a guest in the Imperial Suite might require. For breakfast, confused by the open-endedness of the options, she'd nearly blurted out the least boring of the three available options on the _Gorgon_ , before asking instead what the Imperial chef recommended. This had somehow resulted in a breakfast plate full of foods so refined that Daala didn't even know their names. She had wolfed them down. There were fruits she didn't recognize that tasted sweet and tart and _fresh_. There were bits of fluff that might be a strange meat or egg or even soft pastry, but they were so delicious that she feared to eat them too fast lest she lose composure. After quietly gorging herself she'd gone into the fresher and wiped her face, feeling strangely guilty.

Lunch had been similar. Daala also asked the droids for news vids, and she lined those up to watch during breaks or during the more brainless parts of her work. Tarkin had not yet been able to introduce her to the Joint Chiefs, and of course all the interesting parts of the current military situation would be classified, but she could get a basic lay of the land this way. She learned about the factions that had done battle with Tarkin's military on Coruscant. Pitiful, she thought; three of the four had weak leaders, and the fourth faction seemed to have seceded off into some distant part of space instead of fighting. Even if they didn't get along with Tarkin personally, most of the valuable people in the Empire seemed to see the wisdom of staying on the winning side. The incursions at the Empire's borders, taking advantage of their current distraction, seemed to her to be more of a concern. Give an inch to forces like the Rebels and they'd take everything.

She snuck in a few clips about the Death Star, too. The public-facing reports were very tightly censored, stating only that a cutting-edge battle station under construction by the Empire had been attacked by Rebel insurgents and many faithful Imperial lives lost. The battle station's actual purpose went unmentioned. That didn't surprise Daala; even many of the scientists at the Maw had needed to be fed careful stories about what their research was for. The public was better off not knowing until the project was complete. But the newscasters had dared to include a couple of short clips, shorn of context, showing the completed station. Its great moonlike roundness, the concave dish from which the weapon would fire, just as grand as it had seemed in those first designs.

She sighed wistfully. She wished she'd been there. With any luck, the Sun Crusher project would go better.

She finished the report at fifteen hundred and sent the file to Tarkin. His ship wouldn't even be out of hyperspace by now, but she knew he would notice the timestamp. She emerged from the Imperial Suite and asked the Royal Guards for directions to her actual guest suite, which was not far. Her personal belongings had already been delivered there. She changed into her one good set of off-duty clothes - a long-sleeved tunic, a ruffled vest, and a set of tight trousers that flattered her figure - and then set out, as instructed, to explore.

It was easier once she got outside the palace. The streets of Coruscant were a chaos that took all her attention - but they felt good, alive, like hearing boisterous music again after a long silence.

She decided to start by shopping. Daala had been accruing an admiral's salary for three years with literally nothing to spend it on, and one good pair of off-duty clothes did not feel like enough. There were entire acres of shopping within an easy air-taxi ride of the Imperial Palace, facades dozens of stories high that were peppered with boutiques like a beehive. She flitted between them and bought several more casual outfits, some shoes, some accessories, and a satiny nightgown.

She paused by a display of formal dresses. She would need one of these, wouldn't she? Daala was an Emperor's mistress. She had never been much of one for skirts and frills, but surely there must be some upcoming occasion where she'd need them. Maybe Tarkin would want to take her to the opera. Maybe he'd want her on his arm, when Emperor Vader wasn't around, for a soiree with bankers or something. Besides, the one that had caught her attention was the same green as her eyes, and its elegant angles reminded her of the way those belted robes hung on Tarkin's body. The way the skirt flared and shoulders canted gave it the look of an eldritch ancient goddess.

Some time later she came out of the store with that dress bundled over her arm, having put down a number of credits too large to make emotional sense to her, but which she'd calculated she could afford.

There were other delights available here besides clothes. Daala made a quick line to the game store next. She minutely inspected the newest strategy and tactics sims of the past three years and then bought several. She'd brought a handheld game with her to the Maw for her off hours, but she'd long ago explored that one's tricks and exploits as far as seemed possible. She spent the afternoon flitting from store to store like that, picking up any useful-looking object that had been denied to her in exile. She ate dinner by herself somewhere fancy, with a view of the sunset.

Sometimes people's heads turned as Daala passed. She could tell the difference at a glance between their different types: the ones who habitually stared at every attractive woman; the ones who paused because they saw authority in her stride; the ones who recognized her from the scandal three years ago. That latter group was not as large as she had feared. A few sneered, but none were foolish enough to say anything to her face. Scandals had an expiry date past which they stopped exciting people, and Daala had grown out her hair and looked different now.

For the night, not having heard anything from Tarkin yet, she asked around about the best current cultural events. She changed into her new dress, wanting to look her best, and found herself in the orchestra seats at an opera about the tragic love between a warrior queen and an enemy general. Tarkin talked about opera sometimes, but Daala had never been to one before. It was certainly grand and sweeping, but she couldn't keep her mind on the story.

She thought about Tarkin instead. He must have arrived on Mustafar by now. What was going on? What sort of emergency had happened to Emperor Vader? She knew he was in poor health, and he'd told her that he'd only recently recovered from an injury. Had he had some sudden relapse? Was that common for him? It must be both dire and at least somewhat unusual, if Tarkin had to leave so quickly and ungracefully to deal with it. She knew Tarkin's adherence to schedules.

What would happen if Emperor Vader _died?_ Tarkin would rule the galaxy alone, she supposed. That would solve some problems and cause others. Tarkin had become Emperor because Vader said so - neither of them had pretended there was any more justification than that. And he'd not been in power for long. Without Vader's backing, he would be hard pressed to keep the advantage he'd gained over the other claimants. Daala couldn't think of any living person better qualified to run the galaxy than Tarkin, but even for him, it would be tricky. And of course he would also be heartbroken, et cetera - there were _emotions_ in this, of course - but Daala didn't want to dwell on that side of it for long.

The opera ended with both lovers tragically, poetically dead, and Daala sashayed back to the palace feeling reasonably pleased. At least she could say she'd seen an opera now. A few admirers tried to catch her attention in the lobby - this dress was suitable for its intended purpose, then - but she haughtily ignored them. She returned to her sumptuous guest suite in good spirits, much later than twenty-one hundred, and collapsed very comfortably into bed.

She'd turned off her comm link out of respect for the performance, but when she turned it back on there was a brief message from Tarkin, stating that the situation with Vader was resolved, and that he was on his way home. He'd be back by midmorning, if all went well, and he'd want to see her then, but only briefly. There would be a vast number of other Imperial matters to put back into order before he could relax again.

The timing was interesting. She'd assumed that if Tarkin went all the way to Fortress Vader, he'd stay the night, but his estimated arrival time was only possible if he'd tarried there no longer than an hour or two. Maybe Vader wasn't well enough to keep a lover overnight, or maybe it didn't work that way with them, or maybe Tarkin had been too distracted by the thought of all the obligations waiting for him at home.

Sleep came to her without dreams, and the new day dawned quickly enough. Daala had thought she might spend the morning swanning around some art gallery, but a different idea occurred to her when she woke. To navigate the current situation skillfully, Daala was going to need to understand Emperor Vader. And Emperor Vader had once been a Jedi. Why not start there? This whole Imperial Palace had once belonged to the Jedi Order. Daala knew various things about the Jedi already, but mostly only from the stories Tarkin had told her.

"Where would I go," she asked a silver-plated protocol droid, "if I wanted to see artifacts of the Jedi Order? Or historical footage, or anything of that nature? Is there a museum?"

"Of course not, ma'am." The droid looked indignant at the very idea. "The Jedi were traitors."

"Of course they were," she said impatiently. "But you can see the value in studying them, as a tactician. Out of historical interest."

"Oh, as a tactician!" said the droid, as if that made everything completely different. Maybe it did; maybe she'd abruptly been switched from the _tourist_ slot to the _Admiral_ slot in its little electronic mind. "Well, there's sure to be something like that in the Imperial Archive. That's not far from here, though its contents would be more academic in nature. But surely nothing that a person such as yourself couldn't handle..."

She dismissed it. The Archive sounded worth looking into, but she'd need a block of time bigger than the one she had this morning, and she'd need to narrow down more precisely what questions she had.

Tarkin's ship came even quicker than she'd thought, and it was a relief to see his shuttle touch down on that special landing pad atop the palace, with its roaring escort of TIE fighters by its side. She waited for him on bended knee, in full uniform, and when the other officials had filed away he beckoned for her to rise.

"This way," he said. His narrow face looked indrawn, tired and worried. But he took her by the hand as they walked back, flanked by the unbiquitous guards, to the Imperial Suite.

She had to work very hard not to display any unprofessional emotion on her face. Tarkin was holding her hand. He was holding her hand _in front of people._ Just as he'd done with Emperor Vader in that recording. She and Tarkin could do things like this in front of people now, and no one could do anything about it. Daala felt unjustifiably smug.

At length the Imperial Suite's door shut behind them, in that odd pastel sitting room, and they were alone.

"I received your report," said Tarkin. "I haven't had a chance yet to read it in full, but it seems you've done well."

"Sir," said Daala, "what _happened?_ With Emperor Vader."

"Oh." Tarkin's face clouded. "I'm afraid if I told you the whole thing, I'd be breaking a confidence. Think of it as a medical emergency. He's out of the worst of it, but the next few weeks may be more difficult than I had anticipated."

That explained exactly nothing, except that problems might continue to occur. But she wasn't going to ask him to betray Vader's secrets. Vader read minds; had he noticed, somehow, the things Tarkin already told her? Had he taken offense? Surely not much, or she'd be hearing about it.

"Does this sort of thing happen often, sir?"

"Oh." He looked surprised by the question. "No, actually; this was unprecedented. Which is not to say that he doesn't have crises, but-" He worked his jaw, clearly resisting the temptation to say more. "I'm sorry, my dear. I seem to have brought you in at a time when things are unstable. I can understand if you're unimpressed. But we'll pull through this together. It will simply take effort." He placed his hand on her shoulder, and his fingers dug in harder than they often did. As if she was an anchor he was trying to grasp. "I hope your exploring went well without me, at least."

"Yes, sir. I went shopping and I saw an opera. It's good to be around society again."

"Good. I want to hear about it. Unfortunately there are several dozen important officials angry that their meetings with me were delayed, and they take precedence. I'm going to have a short scheduling meeting with Nemeus and then I'm going to mop up what damage I can. Keep doing what you've been doing; I hope I'll be able to finish your report and introduce you to the Joint Chiefs tomorrow. And I'll see you tonight at -" He paused, mentally going through the known constraints on his schedule and revising whatever he'd been about to say. "No, I can do better for you than that. Nineteen hundred. These beauracratic peacocks need to learn they can't have everything."

"Thank you, sir." She didn't feel so upset about the delays anymore. It was hard to, when he was standing right in front of her, holding her in his hand, looking into her eyes. When she had him in the present, there was so little else that mattered.

He took her by the chin, leaned in, and kissed her, slightly absent. For a moment she got distracted trying to see if she could taste Emperor Vader on his breath. She could not, of course; nor was she sure what that ought to taste like. For all she knew, the two of them hadn't even kissed.

"Sir," she said when they parted. She wanted to be part of this. She wanted to prove useful. "When you say this will take effort from all of us - what effort do you want from me?"

He smiled slightly, seeming to approve of the question. "Patience, for now. Perhaps more later. We'll have to see."

There was something tricky in his eyes, the ghost of some half-formed thought he did not feel free to share. She knew he would not answer her about it if she asked. She kept it with her, silently, long after he'd walked away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarkin discovers Palpatine's Contingency plans. He doesn't like them very much.

Tarkin was, to say the least, unhappy.

The better part of a week had passed since that fraught night on Coruscant. He had kept Vader alive - if only barely - and had returned to Coruscant with a new mission. Tarkin _liked_ having missions, but right now there were too many. There were the military threats from six or seven directions, the governmental lacunae that Palpatine had left behind, the continued stress of ensuring everyone adapted to a new regime which was still only a few weeks old. And now there was this, the mysterious presence which might be a worse threat than all others combined, or which might only be a fear conjured in Vader's mind. He wouldn't know which one until they'd pursued it much further. He'd promised to keep it a secret. And he'd promised, in spite of all the other threats, that it would be his top priority.

Not only his top priority, but the Empire's.

This necessitated some headaches, as everyone else in the Empire now wanted to know what the hell he was doing.

Tarkin knew how to handle such pressures, of course. It wasn't pretty, but it was one of the things a good ruler had to be prepared for. People had to trust that Tarkin's actions usually succeeded, and to fear what might happen if they failed to cooperate. A good ruler spent his career saving up both those coins. So that, when it came to pass that he had to do something that made no sense to anyone, he could still expect to be obeyed.

Just as Tarkin had told Vader, there were many avenues to pursue. There were massive Imperial archives. There were notes Palpatine had left to himself, artifacts in the palace treasury and in his private chambers. Tarkin had even found what appeared to be well-preserved paper books of Sith lore, but they were inconveniently written in Sith, as were most of the private notes.

There was also the campaign against Rax's faction in the Unknown Regions. It had not taken long to send a small fleet to each of the locations Vader had given and to investigate the observatories placed there. They'd found further writings and artifacts which they passed along to Tarkin's analysts on Coruscant. They'd found a droid that spoke with a recording of Palpatine's voice; it had been immediately disassembled, and the Empire's best slicers were now combing its circuits for information. They had not yet made direct contact with Rax's fleet, but they'd found clues which might be tracked, given time, and the analysts at home had found fragments of communications between Palpatine and Rax.

Between all of these sources of information, a picture was beginning to emerge. Not about the ghost, but about Palpatine's plans more generally, and Tarkin did not like it at all.

As for Vader, he seemed to be doing as well as he reasonably could. He'd slept in his tank for a solid forty-eight hours, and now he was awake for a few hours a day again - not yet ready to emerge from the tank, but lucid enough while he floated there. Tarkin tried to call him during those hours if he could. It wasn't always possible, but he didn't want to leave Vader alone too long.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, when he did get through.

"I am improving," said Vader. The hologram of him floated in front of Tarkin, naked from the chest up, with the usual set of straps holding him steady by the stumps of his upper arms. He looked dour.

"How is your sleep?" Tarkin asked. "Have you had that dream much?"

"It is the only dream I have. But it is not constant. There are times when my mind can rest."

That was a mercy, at least. "Have you learned anything more about it?"

Vader shook his head, which made his breathing tubes wobble. "I have tried. Have you learned anything in your researches?"

"A great deal, but little enough that helps us with the current problem. Mainly more questions."

There was a sour amusement in Vader's face. "My master is like that."

"Did you know he was planning to dismantle the Empire if he was killed?"

Out of everything he'd discovered, this was what bothered Tarkin most. Palpatine, at least according to his communiques with Rax, _did_ have a plan. But he had not chosen a secret heir he liked better than Vader. He had not decided how the Empire should proceed after him. He had done precisely the opposite. He had decided, in the event that he died, to tear it all down.

"I did not," said Vader. But he did not look very surprised.

"He apparently believed that if the Empire could not protect its own ruler, then it had failed, and must be cleared away in favor of something better." Tarkin had been upset by this ever since he learned it, and he scowled at Vader's face across the holo connection. "That doesn't make sense, does it? You told me that he wants to use your body to continue his existence. Wouldn't he prefer to return to a _functioning_ Empire?"

As Palpatine had explained it to Rax, this was a distressingly grand, long-term plan. The Empire would be punished for its failure to protect its head of state. Taken apart from the inside, so that the strongest and worthiest could rise from its ashes unencumbered by whatever had made them fail.

Tarkin did not yet understand _how_ the Empire was to be taken apart, nor what exactly was supposed to transpire afterwards. But decades might pass, it seemed, before it was time for Palpatine's chosen few to rebuild. Decades of anarchy, or Rebel rule, or whatever other awful thing took hold in the absence of an Emperor.

Palpatine _wanted_ that to happen. He had gone to such lengths to build his Empire promising order and peace. But then he had decided to kick it all down again, like a child's sandcastle, out of mere spite.

Palpatine had mentored Tarkin from the beginning of his career. Tarkin had thought that he understood the man. He had known Palpatine was untrustworthy, yet he'd thought that Palpatine's rulership, at least, could be trusted. A mind as cruel and complex as Palpatine's was a necessary part of the galactic apparatus. A mind like that needed to be at the reins, because a mind like that could keep things stable in a complex and untrustworthy universe. That was what Palpatine had promised _him_ : that together they would build a central government so powerful, it could keep order forever.

And yet.

"I do not know," said Vader. He didn't look bothered by the contradiction. "Perhaps the two plans intersect in a way we cannot yet see. Perhaps he preferred to bide his time and take over again later, in some other way."

"I thought the Empire meant something to him. Why would a man scheme for so long to remake the whole galaxy, if its form didn't _mean_ something?"

Vader smiled, sourly amused. "You told me once that I should think more critically about what my master told me. Perhaps the true difficulty was yours."

"But-" Tarkin clenched his jaw. A fight about which of them had been fooled, and in what way, wasn't going to be helpful. "It's irritating me. I'm finding information, but none of it makes sense. You'd be astonished how many odd Sith artifacts people have picked up around the palace in the past three weeks. None that seem immediately relevant to the military situation or to life after death, but then, I don't understand most of them. I'm having them shipped to you, along with some paper books. You can analyze them when Emfour says you're well enough."

"As you wish."

"Did you know there's a secret mirror room next to the throne room? It wasn't in the blueprints. Architect Leffe doesn't know what it's for. Do you?"

"Visions. Focusing energy. There will not be anything there you can learn from, I think."

"Did you know about Palpatine's son?" _That_ one seemed to shock Vader speechless, so Tarkin plaintively continued. " _I_ didn't know he had anything of the sort. It was buried so deep in the records that nobody but him and a few ISB agents knew. The son himself doesn't appear to be much threat - no sign of Force sensitivity nor political ambition - but I'm having him covertly monitored in case that changes."

"I did not know," said Vader, with a distant look, as if he'd gone very far inward all of a sudden. "I had never understood him to be interested in family matters."

"No, I hadn't either. Did you know translating droids aren't permitted to translate Sith? They know the language, but they can't use it. Some Republic decree. That's why I haven't gotten anywhere yet with those paper books."

That seemed to distract Vader back into presence. "Give me a translator droid when I am well, and some time in my workshop, and I can get around that."

"That would help, yes. You can read Sith yourself, can't you?"

Vader hesitated. "Mostly. My speech is more accurate than my reading."

Tarkin held up a flimsi covered in hand-scribbled notes and had the holocam zoom in on it, closely enough that the letters would be legible. There had been dozens, maybe hundreds of these scattered through Palpatine's office and other private areas. "What does this say?"

Vader squinted, and Tarkin belatedly remembered that Vader's vision wasn't good without his mask. He zoomed in a bit further. He was about to ask if that was enough when Vader answered, "These are notes on a meeting between the Emperor and a diplomat from the commercial sector. He appears to have been displeased with her. I see nothing relevant to us."

"Why would he write notes on a trivial meeting in a sacred ancient language?"

"I do not know. Perhaps he was practicing his grammar. Perhaps he foresaw us going through these notes and wished to make it difficult. Perhaps he finds the language enjoyable."

"There are hundreds of these, Vader. They all require either you or a specially modified droid. And we're going to have to sift through trivialities like these for all of them just to see if he wrote any notes that are actually important."

"Yes."

Tarkin snatched up another flimsi, frustrated. "What does this say?"

Vader barely glanced at it. "Kippers for lunch. Overcooked."

"He wrote about his _lunch,_ " Tarkin fumed.

"Yes."

"In an ancient language of pure evil."

"It appears so."

" _Why?_ "

"You keep expecting my master to make sense."

Tarkin made a frustrated gesture. "Can't you explain any of this?"

Vader gave him a searching look. "It is not his notes that you wish me to explain."

There was no sense in denying the point. "What does he _want?_ Why any of this? Why the Empire?"

"The Sith never wanted any political structure for its own sake," said Vader. "There was already a Sith Empire. It already failed. From the time of Darth Bane onward, the Sith religion was not about amassing followers. It was about, at most, two people. One master at a time, and an apprentice to succeed him when he failed. The Dark Side is selfish and individual, and the goal of the Sith master is to see how far it goes. How much power can be amassed by a single being."

"But ruling an Empire _is_ power," Tarkin protested. If Palpatine was merely selfish and power-hungry, Tarkin could have understood that. This was something far stranger. "He had the whole galaxy."

"That is not all the power there is. My master wanted power over everything, not only war and politics. His own master was Darth Plagueis the Wise, who unlocked many of the secrets of life itself."

Tarkin gave him a sharp look. "Is that how he survived his own death? You could have mentioned that before."

"It could be." Vader's face formed an ugly snarl for a moment, letting a resentment far bitterer and deeper than Tarkin's rise to the surface. "He told me that he did not possess the secrets to saving others from death; those had died when Plagueis did. And even Darth Plagueis could not save himself. But it would not be the first time my master has lied."

Tarkin rubbed his own temples. "We'll start looking there, at least. Any materials related to this Plagueis person can be given priority, if we find them."

"Search the Jedi Archives, too," said Vader, with a strange, sudden look on his face, as if this had just occurred to him. "Or what is left of them."

"You think the Jedi knew something about all this?" Tarkin did not relish the thought of an even larger body of work to research, but if it had to be done - well, he could assign more analysts. It could be done.

"I do not know. But I told you what happened to Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Tarkin frowned even more deeply. Vader had made a point of telling Tarkin all about his final duel with Kenobi, although in Tarkin's opinion there had been many more pressing matters at hand. Sometimes Tarkin wondered about the two of them. Vader had, by his own account, never been with anyone before his fall but Padmé. But Kenobi had been Vader's master back when Vader was a Jedi, and Vader had a habit of mentioning him just a little too emphatically and often.

Kenobi was dead; Vader had assured him of that. But there had been... irregularities with the body.

"You told me Obi-Wan Kenobi's body vanished when he died," said Tarkin. "Palpatine's didn't. Palpatine's body was in quite some number of physically extant pieces. I would therefore assume that we're discussing two different phenomena, unrelated to each other. Have you had any dreams of Kenobi?"

Vader shook his head. "I told you I have only had one dream."

"Then we can assume Kenobi is either fully dead, or choosing to stay out of our way. We can have the remains of the Jedi Archives checked, though; their own perspectives on life and death may be contextually useful."

Tthe amount of information to sift through was growing intractably. But that was the analysts' problem, not Tarkin's. They had their own ways of prioritizing leads. Tarkin sighed, returning to the previous point. "So Palpatine was more concerned about developing his magical powers than he was about the Empire, is that what you were saying?"

Palpatine had grown so reclusive, delegating more and more of his responsibilities to people like Mas Amedda, or like Tarkin. It stood to reason he'd been working on _something_ , locked away in those chambers of his.

"He wanted power over everything. Life and death. Time and space. The cosmic balance of the Force itself. He wanted to be a god, with control over the very underpinnings of the universe." There was a distant look on Vader's ravaged face. "I was once told that I could be such a god."

"Do you want to be one?" asked Tarkin, unnerved.

"No."

"So the Empire was a means to an end? Just a way to amass resources toward that larger goal?"

"Yes. If that means failed, he will dismantle it and try another."

This at least followed some internal logic. Tarkin looked at Vader speculatively. "What does he want to do with that power when he has it, then? With the universe's underpinnings?"

"I do not know," said Vader. He looked put off by the question, as if it had never occurred to him to ask. "To amuse himself. To protect himself from any challengers seeking the same power. To laugh at the rest of the beings in existence and make them suffer for not getting there first."

Tarkin cocked his head. Vader bore the title of Sith master now, at least in theory. "What would you do? If you had that power."

The face Vader made in response to that question was odd indeed. Nearly a shudder of horror. Odder still - a partly _suppressed_ shudder of horror, tinged with grief. Vader so rarely showed any control or awareness of what his face did. Perhaps he was belatedly learning.

"There is much I would undo," he said. "There are many I would punish. There are some I would protect. What would you do? If you had it."

Tarkin was surprised by the question - it didn't apply to him, surely - but the answer seemed easy enough. "I'd make things orderly, of course."

Wasn't that the way? Order and peace, wrested by any necessary means from the chaos of the galaxy. Civilization imposing its will on what was beastly and wild. That was what Tarkin had been taught from birth. It was a conviction he'd thought Palpatine shared.

And now Palpatine's ghost, no doubt, was laughing at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout-out to [this article](https://www.tor.com/2019/12/10/the-4-ways-that-emperor-palpatine-engineered-his-return-in-star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker/) which has influenced my thinking about palpatine's long term goals.
> 
> *obligatory cackle*


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stresses of trying to wage war on a ghost are beginning to wear on Tarkin. Daala notices.

A week had passed since the emergency on Mustafar. Daala received her Grand Admiral's uniform and went through a short swearing-in ceremony. Tarkin placed her as a liaison between him and Vader and the Joint Chiefs. The two Emperors still set the priorities, but there were so many other urgent matters of state; it was impractical for the Emperors to directly coordinate a war of succession on so many fronts. Daala was now in charge of handling those details. It was an immense responsibility, and it required all the poise and control Tarkin had ever taught her.

All the generals and admirals Daala dealt with in this new position were much older than her. She could tell, from their tones of voice and the expressions on their faces, that they did not take her seriously. At best, they saw her as a glorified secretary, like Alba Nemeus, who sometimes accompanied her to jot down notes. They did not think much of the Imperial decisions she enforced. Daala dealt with that as she'd been taught: staring them down, showing strength, refusing to give ground.

"Our attacks aren't making any headway against the Lothal rebels," complained a hologram of Admiral Tenant, who was in charge of that particular campaign. "In that last skirmish our defenses barely held. We cannot retake the planet without reinforcements, Grand Admiral. I need more ships."

But there weren't any more ships, and they all knew it. The best and biggest parts of the fleet had been sent into the Unknown Regions to chase Admiral Rax.  The rest of the Empire was stretched quite thin.

Daala had thought that the Rebels were the most pressing danger. The other factions quibbled about who should rule this Empire, but the Rebels wanted to destroy it. Ceding entire planets to them could spell disaster. But in Tarkin's opinion, any planet taken by Rebels could be easily retaken once the internal trouble was dealt with. And in Vader's opinion - for reasons Tarkin would not explain, secret reasons that had haunted him since Mustafar - Rax's faction was the worst threat of all. Worth risking everything to root out and destroy.

It had something to do with the Force, Daala knew. She'd worked out that much by paying attention to the campaign, and to the nature of the other investigations that had suddenly begun. Vader and Tarkin were worried that Palpatine had left something powerful and Force-related behind, and that Rax's faction had the lead on finding it. The emergency on Mustafar - _think of it as a medical emergency_ \- had something to do with that. The mystical objects they sought had somehow threatened Vader's life directly.

And Tarkin, who loved Vader, who'd already become a traitor for Vader's sake - Tarkin, who played at being the rational one, but was _not_ \- would risk the whole rest of the Empire to save him.

Daala didn't like this gamble, but it might well be the correct one. Without the legitimacy granted to him by Vader, Tarkin would be hard pressed to keep the galaxy together anyway. She had tried to come up with a better course, and so far, she could not.

She was having to remind herself, over and over again, of how she trusted him.

Standing before the Joint Chiefs, Daala did not display the slightest mote of doubt. She stood as straight and cool as a woman who had commanded the galaxy all her life.

"Withdraw from Lothal," she said.

"Withdraw? But - sir -"

The masculine military honorific was used for Daala, as it was for other women in command. In Basic, there had never been another one.

"You heard me," said Daala. "Withdraw. All at once, silently, and without any implicit admission of defeat. Invoke Protocol 13 and evacuate all Imperial personnel from the planet. Make the Rebels fear what might arrive in your stead. Then redirect your forces to assist Admiral Szylle's fleet on Pantora. If we can take and hold one planet, it will become that much easier to retake the other."

Admiral Tenant huffed and glared. Daala waited it out, impassive. These men didn't respect _her,_ but they saw Emperor Tarkin's knife-sharp face just a breath behind hers.

One day, she promised herself, they'd learn to fear her for her own sake.

"As you wish, sir," said Tenant eventually, putting an emphasis on the _sir_ that stopped just short of insult.

Every night at twenty-one hundred, after a long day of dealing with things like this, Daala had standing orders to retire to the Imperial Suite. This was what she looked forward to most. The Royal Guards, who'd been told to expect her, waved her through. She strode through the cushy sitting room listening for Tarkin's voice. A good dinner, barely touched, had been left to go cold in the room's central table. From the private office a little further into the suite, she could hear Tarkin arguing with Alba Nemeus.

"-due respect to Emperor Vader, sir, but we can't search through private files of Emperor Palpatine's major surviving backers just because he has a Force hunch. It's not a matter of warrants. It's about not alienating the base we have. A new regime seen as too paranoid, too keen on purging the traces of its predecessor, will lose the support of anyone who liked the old regime."

"I don't care."

Daala approached the door and it opened automatically. She genuflected in the doorway, on one knee, with her head bowed.

Tarkin turned in her direction, distracted from whatever else he'd been about to say. "Admiral Daala. Is it twenty-one hundred already?"

"Yes, sir. You sent for me, sir."

Nemeus glanced meaningfully between the two of them. Daala was still getting used to this part,  being able to walk into a room and say  _Emperor Tarkin sent for me,_ without worrying if anyone would find it suspicious _._ Their relationship was public knowledge now. Daala still wore her pure white Grand Admiral's uniform; she observed the formalities. But if Tarkin ordered it, she could have walked into this meeting in casual wear, or in that new nightgown of hers, or in nothing at all. And no one but the Emperors would ever dare object.

Tarkin turned back to Nemeus. "This conversation was finished anyway. See that the searches Vader ordered are done."

"As you wish, my lord," said Nemeus, with a small, carefully controlled annoyance. He strode out past Daala without another glance at her.

The room was already free from guards and other hangers-on. Daala didn't move. She expected Tarkin to bid her rise. Instead, to her shock, he moved to the wall beside her and sank to the ground. He sat on the office's floor.

"You can sit," he said.

"Sir," she said bewildered, but Daala knew how to obey.  She maneuvered neatly from her kneeling position to a seat at his side.

This campaign had been weighing on Tarkin. The whole week since Mustafar, it had progressively gotten worse. Wars, even very difficult wars, never fazed him like this. But the current situation was more than a mere war. To the Joint Chiefs, his moves had been growing increasingly, visibly desperate. To her, when they were alone in these rooms, it was visible another way.

Tarkin's bed was the one place where Daala could safely show weakness. And sometimes it went the other way, too. Daala's eyes were the only ones permitted to see him exhausted, bewildered, downcast.

Or were they anymore? What did Tarkin show to Vader, when they were alone? What did Vader see in Tarkin with his Force senses? Tarkin's Theory Of Dealing With Vader talked about projecting strength, but what had changed, what cracks had appeared in the Theory, when the two of them fell in love?

"I'm waging a campaign," he complained, "against something no one can see or feel. Something that might not even _exist._ You were right about the Force. Tactics ought not to exist for which there aren't counter-tactics." He looked down at himself, seeming to realize belatedly how it looked, the two of them sitting here. He was still in his royal robes, with the cape bunched up behind him. "This is unseemly. Let's stand."

"Yes, sir," she said, and they got to their feet, both pretending the floor had not been awkward. The office itself was dark and grand like one of the Imperial Palace's less-private rooms; it was not the kind of room in which one sat in a corner. There was an elegant desk and a number of chairs scattered around, as well as shelves and other effects.

Tarkin stood still for a moment, regaining his dignity, then began to restlessly pace. "I read your memo regarding Lothal. There wasn't anything better you could have done, but I don't like that we're losing ground."

"Nor do I, sir. Is there any progress?"

"Yes, actually. I think that's what's bothering me today. We haven't pieced together the whole of it yet, but we have a good idea now of the larger plans it fits into. The problem is that I don't like those plans at all."

"Were you expecting to like the enemy, sir?"

"Not at all. But-" He paused mid-pace, not far from her. "Yes, I can tell you that much, I suppose. Palpatine had a contingency plan for the event of his death. Should such an event come to pass, he wanted the rest of the Empire to die with him. That's one of several reasons why Rax's faction is the greatest threat. The other factions want to take over and do a bad job. Admiral Rax wants to destroy us entirely. He's better equipped to do so than the Rebels, and even less inclined to leave anything functional behind when he's finished." He turned to her, a cold rage in his eyes, one of the deepest she'd ever seen. "And it was Palpatine who instructed him to do so."

Daala blinked; that was not the motivation she'd assumed for Rax's faction, and it was alarming even to her. She wasn't quite sure how to take it. "Are you sure, sir?"

"I wouldn't stake my life on it, but it's the picture that's emerging. Vader wasn't even surprised." He rubbed at his temples, seeming unable to let the problem go. "I could understand if he planned vengeance against the people who'd murdered him, or even some sort of difficult trial, meant to weed out anyone not a worthy heir. But _this_ \- it's vengeance against everything we ever built. Vader says the Empire was only ever a stepping stone. A means to an end, and the end is so eldritch and removed from real concerns that I can't even understand it. The whole Empire-"

None of that made sense, and he was going in circles. "Sir," Daala interrupted, controlling her mounting unease. "You haven't eaten anything this evening, have you?"

"Yes, of course I have."

"When I entered the sitting room, sir, there was a steak dinner left on the table, virtually untouched.  It looked like you'd only taken a single bite."

"That's technically something." He looked back towards the sitting room, distracted. "The droid should have taken that away by now."

"Maybe it thought you weren't done, sir."

"I shall have to teach it prompter execution of its duties."

"Why don't I go get it, sir-"

With one precise motion, he grabbed her by wrist and pulled her closer in. It was not a hold strong enough to keep her if she'd struggled; merely enough of a twist, at a sufficiently well-chosen angle, to make his intent clear. She let herself be tugged backwards against him, feeling the heat of him through his robes.  "You're not going anywhere."

Daala smiled slightly. "Why, sir? Do you need me for something?"

"I did summon you." He bit at her ear. She leaned into it, relaxing slightly; if he could be redirected back to something they both enjoyed, then he wasn't in any truly frightening mental state. "Just because there are difficult matters afoot doesn't mean I don't want you."

Daala closed her eyes and let him do as he pleased. His hands climbed her until they gripped at her shoulders, and then her hair, tugging her head backwards as he bent to kiss her neck. She liked the feel of it; she tried not to think about eldritch ends and vengeance and the galaxy being destroyed. "Tell me."

"I want to hurt you, my dear," Tarkin murmured. "Tonight in particular. I'd like to take a lash and leave marks all down your pretty back." And then suddenly he'd released his grip, returning to cool professionalism. "But you're right; it would be sensible to eat first."

This was something Daala understood. Tarkin didn't like to be coddled. He saw the logic in eating, but he had to get there by his own route, perversely if necessary.

She got him out of the bleak office and onto one of the couches in the sitting room. The serving droid happily agreed to remove the cold steak, and to instead bring a plate of toast and tea, easy to digest. Tarkin sank back into the cushions, staring into space, as it departed.

"I was your age, you know," he said distantly. "When I met Palpatine. I'd already made a name for myself fighting pirates; I already had my beliefs. But it never occurred to me to apply them on more than a local level. Palpatine raised my sights higher. He painted such pictures. The whole Republic brought to heel. Strength, order, control, enough to save the full galaxy from itself. I thought I knew what sort of man he was.  I knew he brought people to bad ends, but those people weren't  _me._ I thought he and I, at least, shared an understanding. All the work we've done, the sacrifices made-" He shook his head, bleaker than ever. "All this time, all of it, and it turns out that I was no different from the rest. Letting him tell me what I wanted to hear."

"Don't wallow, sir," Daala said firmly. Tarkin would never have allowed this level of wallowing from anyone else. Her scolding him wasn't officially a part of their dynamic, but she was allowed to hold him to his own standards. "Did you want an Empire or not? We have one now."

He absently patted her hand. "For however long that lasts."

" _Sir,_ " Daala insisted. She maneuvered off the couch and into his direct field of view, demanding to be noticed. "Emperor Palpatine is dead. This isn't about him anymore. It's not about what happened between him and you, or him and Emperor Vader. You might have wanted what he offered you, but so did the rest of the galaxy.. Means to an end or not. Neither of you would have gotten anywhere if countless people hadn't been happy to follow you. And now he's gone, so it doesn't matter if his motives were pure. It matters if yours are."

Tarkin was, at least, looking her in the eyes again, but he looked unconvinced. "I don't think you fully understand, my dear. Vader-"

He broke off, unable or unwilling to say what Vader had to do with this.

Daala tried to control her resentment. Tarkin had never been like this before. And she couldn't help but trace _all_ of it to Vader: the stress, the concern about Palpatine, the bizarre and inscrutable new goals. Vader was visibly unstable, and it hadn't escaped her notice that Tarkin was the one doing all the real work, while Vader convalesced and occasionally handed down orders he wasn't allowed to explain. If not for Vader's vendetta against his master, Tarkin would still be perfectly happy as a Grand Moff, and Daala-

Daala would still be stuck inside the Maw.

She kept coming to the point of wishing Vader away, wishing she had Tarkin all to herself again, and then coming up against that cold fact. Tarkin was the one who'd made the choice to bring her back, but he'd only done it because he was Emperor now, and he was only Emperor because of Vader.

She could accept that she was here, now, with more freedom and power than she'd ever had. Or she could wish herself back there, maybe for years longer, without any word from Tarkin at all. If those were her choices, she'd take the world she was in, even if Emperor Vader was in it, too. Even if she had to tiptoe around his strange moods and his crises, to work to please him too. Even if she had to stare down the Joint Chiefs and enforce orders _he'd_ made, from a distance, without telling her why.

"Vader believes there are other risks out there," Tarkin said at last, very carefully. "More than just Rax's faction. Risks for which Palpatine's former motives matter a great deal. He has reason to believe so. And, as one of the sovereign emperors of the galaxy, he has every right to ensure his concerns are addressed. In some sense, we truly are fighting Palpatine in absentia. He told us all so many things over the years. If he's now our enemy, it's vital to know which ones were lies."

Daala straightened, feeling the stiff texture of the Grand Admiral's uniform against her skin. He was right, in a sense, but these kinds of thoughts could destroy him. "The Empire is not a lie, sir."

"To say something and not mean it is the _definition-_ "

"No." Daala was certain of this. By his own admission, Tarkin had wanted an Empire all along; he only hadn't believed it was possible to build one so big. Palpatine had laid the Empire's groundwork, but it was Tarkin, with his Doctrine, who'd given it so much of its inner form. She'd known that from the very first time she watched him on the holonets as a young girl. Her heart had thrilled to the dream of power and order, and that dream had worn Tarkin's own face. "You know it isn't, or you wouldn't rule it now."

Tarkin looked about to acknowledge the point, but then he glanced away, distracted again. "I wonder if Vader thinks so."

Daala fought down a chill as that statement sank in. Tarkin looked calm, saying it, as if it was merely a difference of opinion between lovers. As if he hadn't thought it through.

It was one thing to debate the motivations of a dead man. But Emperor Vader was alive. Emperor Vader had killed Palpatine because, in essence, he didn't like him. He had openly criticized Palpatine's policies in his coronation speech, and he hadn't shown much interest in the business of ruling. What happened if _Vader_ no longer wanted to have an Empire?

It seemed that Tarkin didn't know. Was it possible that the two of them hadn't even _discussed their political views_ before deciding to rule the galaxy together? Could they really have been _that_ stupid?

"I think you'd better find that out, sir," she said flatly.

"Yes, when he's well enough to fruitfully discuss it," said Tarkin. He was still so unafraid it seemed flippant. But he did give her a thoughtful frown. "This is really quite an odd way of governing. I'd care for Vader's safety regardless, and I'd want to investigate anything that threatened him. But it's one thing to _care_ and another to know that my rule is dependent on his backing. Quite apart from my own felings on the matter, it all falls apart without him. I thought this would be like doing a mission together, but it's much more than that. It's more as though-" He paused a moment, struggling to get the words out in the right order. "I've achieved this rank, yet it's only partially my own."

Daala was entirely done trying to solve any of this. She gave him a dry look. "Can't relate, sir."

Tarkin glared back at her, but he was more amused than annoyed. "How do you deal with it, then?"

She shook her head. "Don't know. Never been Emperor. Never dated Darth Vader. Can't help you, sir. You brought this on yourself."

"Stop that. Come here." He pulled her in for a punishing kiss, making her collapse into his lap, and she leaned into him. She liked his forcefulness. The ways his teeth dug in. One hand a fist in her hair, the other tightening at her hip.

"I'll do it myself," he said, fitting the words into the short spaces when his mouth had room. His eyes were open, and his blue-gray gaze bored feverishly into hers. "I'll save Vader _and_ the Empire. If Palpatine didn't want the galaxy to stay in order, I'll keep it in order anyway. I'll burn whoever stands in my way. I'll _win_. He and his mysticisms never deserved the galaxy's fear. _I_ did."

At that moment, the serving droid rolled back in.

"Your toast and tea, Emperor Tarkin," it said in a tonelessly polite voice. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Tarkin looked torn for a moment, but Daala maneuvered off of him and back into a reasonable seat on the couch. "Eat your toast, sir."

"This isn't over," Tarkin said, mulish.

She hadn't expected it to be.

Daala was quiet as she watched him eat. She had no patience for his complaints about sharing power, but he did have a point. It was one thing to get a position through family, as most of the Empire's upper echelons did. It was another to get it from someone who shared your bed, who was attached to you by base desires which might well change at any moment, and who continued to directly command you. She knew what a delicate balancing act that was. Over the years, her fear of displeasing Tarkin and her fear of losing everything else had fused into one. The distinction between what pleased him and what was strategically best, when those diverged, became a minefield. Her own wants, in the face of those other two things, sometimes got lost.

It took a certain kind of person to thrive under conditions like that. Daala was that kind of person; she had the skills, but they were deep things, felt things, not things she could have named or explained. She was not at all convinced that Tarkin had them. She was not sure, in this particular way, if he was strong enough.

Say that he wasn't, and that his co-rulership with Vader crashed and burned. What then? Aside from galactic chaos. Say there was some conflict between them, and Vader won, and Tarkin lost everything.

Without him, what would happen to her?


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader works on pulling himself back together, and Tarkin interrogates an important prisoner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to liz_mo who pointed out that it is strange that the ghost trying to possess Vader would need his permission. I know why it's doing that, but I took the opportunity to have Vader wonder about it a little more.
> 
> Also CONTENT NOTE: this chapter has a torture scene! And not the fun, safe/sane/consensual kind.

Vader was very gradually getting better. His body was, at least. The pain was less, and the nausea was less. He was sleeping more each day than any reasonable body ought to, with that same recurring nightmare every time. But his waking hours lengthened a little each day. The fatigue was a little less overwhelming. The wounds shrank.

His mind was slightly clearer, though not more cheerful. He had not, at any point, woken up with much hope. But he woke each day knowing that Tarkin would call to check on him if he could. Vader's life had been miserable and wrong for a very long time, and he had learned how to keep going without hope. Fighting a ghost, at Tarkin's side, was not very miserable by those standards. It was no great burden to keep doing it a little while longer.

The nightmare was still a problem, of course. He'd peppered it with questions and made little progress. At one point, in desperation, he'd outright demanded that it tell him how it could be defeated.

 _I cannot be,_ it had said, with that unpleasant smile. _It is far too late for that._

Vader had woken with an uncomfortable worry that this might be true. Some things could not defeated for good: destiny, his own worst urges, truth. Maybe this presence had that same quality - or maybe it wanted him to think it did.

There was much about this entity that did not make sense. He believed it was Palpatine, or something connected to Palpatine. He believed that it wanted to take over his mind. But as long as Vader shouted _no_ with enough force, he could hold it at bay - if only barely. Before Palpatine died, when he'd wanted to reach into Vader's head and change something, he had not been nearly so circumspect. Nor had he considered himself beholden to answer Vader's questions.

Maybe the rules were different now that he was a ghost. Maybe ghosts had more limitations than living people, and that was why he so urgently needed a body to possess. Maybe he was playing one of his games, and he'd decided that it was funnier to make Vader fight him off night after night, knowing his strength would eventually fail, than to take him immediately.

Or maybe Vader was stronger than he'd thought.

That was the thought that comforted him most, even more than the thought of Tarkin. Vader had some small amount of power in this. There was a chance, however small, that he might work out a way to gain more.

In the meantime, there were matters of state to attend to. Tarkin's staff at the Imperial Palace had not forgotten about the daily briefings. But Vader was confined to his tank, and he did not want to let anyone into the room to give him a briefing like that.

 _No one but Tarkin has ever been allowed in my personal quarters,_ he wanted to snarl, when it came up - except that wasn't strictly true. Palpatine had been allowed, and Vaneé, the head house servant, was allowed. M4 was in there almost every day. Other droids were allowed in when needed, and under Palpatine there had been the Royal Guards. It was more accurate to say that Vader's private chambers were _private._ He did not want to be _obliged_ to let anyone in.

Unfortunately, the daily briefings required a stringent security clearance which Vaneé did not have. His credentials were impeccable, but they were those of a servant, not an officer. Vader ordered him to travel to the nearest Imperial Academy and to acquire the necessary clearances in the most efficient way allowed. But that was going to take several weeks, so he needed another officer for the interim. After stewing angrily over that need, Vader ordered Admiral Ozzel to pick one from the bridge crew of the _Executor._ Someone respectful, Vader insisted. Someone already accustomed to enduring his presence. Someone who would avert his eyes when asked, and would not pry.

The man Ozzel selected was a captain named Piett, who was promptly moved to one of Fortress Vader's guest rooms and given leave from the rest of his duties.  Each morning, a tightly encrypted transmission was sent to the fortress, and Piett loaded it onto a datapad. When Vader woke and felt ready, he would summon him. Piett would enter Vader's personal quarters and would read the material aloud, answering any questions and recording any commands to be transmitted back to Coruscant. He would not kneel - Vader was  _very_ tired of kneeling - but would never, on pain of strangulation, look directly at the tank.

Piett obeyed these orders with bland, careful precision, and Vader decided he was tolerable. The order to avert his eyes was more about mental discipline than vision. Vader did not want to feel peered at. Piett's peripheral vision would pick up the gist of it regardless: a vague, limbless silhouette whose details were obscured by the way the tank was lit. An accidental direct glance wouldn't reveal more detail, but a deliberate effort to approach and look in would. M4 and Tarkin were allowed to do that. No one else was, or would be, ever.

Still, it wasn't comfortable, hanging there naked in the bacta, pretending he didn't feel awkward and feeling Piett pretend the same. It made Vader start to wonder about how the tank had been designed in the first place.

"Emfour," he said one morning. "Is it possible to modify the tank's surface?"

M4 had been bustling on the outside of the tank, checking Vader's vitals and adjusting his dosages. "I don't know, Lord Vader. That could mean a lot of things. What are you picturing?"

After Vader's Inquisitor-induced meltdown, it had taken a few days for M4's sullenness to wear off. But she was getting there.  They'd almost returned to their usual casual banter. Not quite.

"This fortress's windows have various settings. They can be transparent, opaque, or in between." Tarkin, who was not fond of lava, liked to make the ones in his guest room opaque. "Can the tank be given those settings?"

M4 hesitated a moment, as if that had never occurred to her. "Yeah, I guess. There's no reason why it couldn't; we'd just need a polarized coating on the outer surface. It wouldn't stop _me_ from knowing what was up with you; I've got lots of other instruments. But it'd stop people like Vaneé or that new captain from seeing things they shouldn't."

"I want that," said Vader. "See it done."

"Sure, Lord Vader. It'll take some time, though, applying the coating and getting it set up the right way, and it'll be a little delicate. It'd be best to do that when you're away on some mission. We can schedule the work for next time that happens. Sound good?"

"As you wish," said Vader, feeling vaguely defeated. If only his stupid body would heal faster.

M4 paused. "Uh, while we're on the topic of what you want, Lord Vader. Your brain waves are looking a lot better these past few days. You remember I said we should talk, right? I'm wondering if this is a good time."

"I remember what you said. But I did not agree to therapy, nor to your verbal screening."

" _Talking_ isn't either of those things, Lord Vader. Although, the fact that you thought I meant that..." She gave an electronic sigh. "I think I did something wrong. That's what I want to talk about, Lord Vader. When we were on our way to the Inquisitor fortress I was telling you about how therapy works, and you clammed up real fast. I think I must have explained it wrong and scared you. And, I mean, there were a _lot_ of things stressing you out that day. I was only one of them, max. But I was one of them. Wasn't I?"

Vader hesitated. This felt like a thing he should not confess. Their hypothetical therapy would first consist of trying to convince him, against all the evidence, that he was safe. If M4 knew he did _not_ feel safe, she'd begin trying to convince him even harder. Wouldn't she?

Maybe she wouldn't. She seemed repentant now, and circumspect. Vader had known M4 for so long; she had often needed to do things that hurt him, but she had always tried her best to treat him like a person. Maybe he should trust her, just a little.

"I cannot let you modify my mind," he said. He did not know how else to explain the problem.

M4 sounded unsurprised. "Because of Lord Sidious, right? He used to do that. With the Force."

Vader sometimes forgot how much M4 already knew. How much he vented to her, on days when he felt like venting. There were some things he named only obliquely, even to her; but M4 was clever, and she could often fill in the gaps.

He felt an odd urge to close up the tank against her, to make it opaque right now. She already knew too much.

"I am the Emperor now," said Vader. "My mind is mine. I will not let you carve it into a design you think more suitable."

"Yeah," said M4. "I should have figured. Look, therapy with a competent practitioner is _not_ about controlling your mind like that, against your will. It's a process where you make choices, gain insights, and learn skills. It's really different from anything Lord Sidious did. But this is actually a really common problem, Lord Vader." He made a derisive noise, and she pressed on. "No, don't _laugh,_ it _is._ Obviously your case is unique in a lot of ways. But a _lot_ of trauma survivors have a hard time trusting anybody. Opening up to somebody about the things that hurt you most? Somebody with power over you, the way a doctor has, who could use those things against you? That takes trust. I guess I'm just so used to us talking all the time, I thought it wouldn't be a problem. But that was sloppy. I should have known."

Vader was surprised by her candor. M4 spoke much more freely with him than any human officer or servant. But even M4 rarely, in such bold terms, admitted to failure. Everyone knew what Vader did when people failed him.

"You wanted it not to be a problem," he guessed. Vader could not read droid minds, but he knew M4 felt attached to him. Tarkin had often done something similar, greedily fishing for Vader's vulnerabilities, not as ammunition against him, but as a form of intimacy. M4 did not want Vader the way Tarkin did; her affection was simpler, like a nurse with a favorite unruly child. But perhaps, in these matters, it was broadly the same.

"Yeah," she admitted, looking down. "Look, normally it's fine for the same droid to do physical and mental health care on the same patient. But most physical health care isn't like this. Maybe I'm too attached. Maybe it'd be better to start fresh with a droid who doesn't know you yet."

"It would not," Vader said firmly. That sounded even worse. _Too attached_ was a Jedi concept, but Palpatine had used it, too, when it suited him. Vader resented it. Life was already hard enough without excising all the people who meant anything.

"Okay," said M4.

Vader turned his head. That had been too easy. "Okay?"

"Yeah. It actually is okay, Lord Vader, because this is up to you. You get to decide who to trust."

"And if I choose to trust no one?"

"Then you trust no one. Not the healthiest choice ever, but it's up to you." M4 fiddled with something on the side of the tank. She was usually working while she talked, or talking while she worked. "Can I ask a follow-up question, though?"

"If you must."

"What about Tarkin? Do you trust him?"

That seemed like a question with traps in it somewhere. Vader was very unsure, for a moment, how to answer.

Vader loved Tarkin. He trusted that Tarkin loved him and meant well, because _that_ could be directly sensed, as clearly as sight or hearing.

Tarkin had someone now who was younger, prettier, more able-bodied, more devoted, and could stay in the palace and submit to him just as he liked. He'd fucked her already; Vader had dimly sensed that when the topic came up, and it hurt to know. But even now, with a passion like that to distract him, Tarkin loved Vader as intensely as before. Vader had seen that and felt it. It could not be denied.

Tarkin had promised they would fight this dream-apparition together. Vader knew that he meant it. Tarkin had been calling him daily with news of his efforts against it. Tarkin would take what Vader said seriously. Tarkin would do his best.

Vader also knew that Tarkin would make mistakes. Tarkin would ask for more than Vader was capable of giving. He'd get carried away. He'd get distracted, both by Admiral Daala and by work. He'd make decisions for Vader that Vader ought to have made for himself. That was his nature, and he could apologize for it, but it would remain.

And there were things Tarkin _couldn't_ understand. Even when he'd promised to fight the apparition, he'd been only halfway convinced it was real. He would never understand the other, deeper reason why Vader was distressed. He could not understand that Vader _should not be Vader_ \- and maybe Tarkin should not be Tarkin, either. The very structure of his mind would not allow those concepts in.

And even if it did, what then? _Well, then,_ Tarkin would say in a briskly practical tone, _if you don't want to be the way you are now, what do you want to be instead?_

And Vader would have no answer. Except maybe _nine years old again_ or _dead,_ and Tarkin would have no patience for either of those.

"I trust him," Vader said, returning his attention to M4, "somewhat."

"You told Tarkin what was upsetting, you, right? The other day. When you wouldn't tell me."

"Some of it."

She was moving further around the tank, slotting in more packets of medicine and adjusting the settings. "See, therapy's not the same as just talking. Therapy has specific goals and procedures. But it _is_ helpful, medically speaking, to have someone you can just talk to. I don't like Tarkin for a lot of reasons, but he's not bad for you the way Lord Sidious was. He really does care. So if you'd rather talk to Tarkin than me, then I think you should keep talking to him."

"About what?" said Vader. He only vaguely followed her argument.

"About how you're feeling lately. How it feels not to have a master anymore. Why it's hard. Maybe all the kinds of things that happened to you before that make it hard. I think he'd get it, Lord Vader, more than you think he will. I think it'd help you to have someone to tell."

Tarkin had become familiar with many aspects of Vader's history already. But what he knew was piecemeal. Even the exposure treatments had been practical in nature. The goal was to learn to endure certain sensations through controlled repetition, not to explain in any detail why they were difficult to endure. Vader had not sat down and tried to explain it coherently, from start to finish.

The only time he'd done something like that was during one of their early dates, on Scarif, after Tarkin saw his unmasked face for the first time. Tarkin had kissed him - consensually - and Vader had panicked. He had found himself needing to explain how a mere kiss on the mouth could cause such panic. So he had told Tarkin the story of Padmé Amidala, the only person he'd kissed like that before. How she'd turned against him when he fell, and how he'd lashed out and caused her death when all he'd wanted was to save her. In the same evening, Tarkin had told Vader about his own first marriage, which was much less dramatic but which had its own difficulties. It had been important to Vader that they both have something to tell. He didn't want to be the only one baring himself.

But that conversation had helped. Maybe Vader was ready for another few like it. Maybe.

"I will think about it," he said.

"Okay," said M4. "That's good." And she didn't push any further.

Even if Vader wanted that conversation, he wasn't going to call Tarkin up to have it _now._ He didn't want to have it with a hologram. He also didn't quite know where to begin.

But he did think about it. It was pleasanter to think about than the endless chase for Rax's faction, or the long lists of finicky details in Piett's briefings, or the dangers in the Force that were headed his way. He thought about it idly until his meds kicked in, and he drifted back to sleep.

*

When they finally caught up with Rax's faction, it happened very fast.

Daala didn't have much opportunity to intervene. Only a brief missive from the Imperial fleet in the Unknown Regions saying they thought they had Rax's trail, which then cut off so that the admiral out there could focus directly on the battle. Then, less than an hour later, the second report: the engagement was over. They'd captured another of Palpatine's mysterious observatories. They'd taken prisoner one of the old Ruling Council, and destroyed perhaps a third of the visible traitor fleet; the rest had fled, and now the Unknown Regions fleet was furiously calculating where they might have gone.

The direct commander of the battle was named Vice-Admiral Rae Sloane, and she was that rarest of rarities, another woman of rank. Daala had learned to watch such women carefully. Some of them felt a solidarity with her, a fellow woman doing the best she could in a system stacked against her; others loathed her even more than the men did, as if her own route to power directly threatened them. Whether friend or foe, she knew that all such women had worked twice as hard, for half the rewards, of any man of equivalent rank. They were not to be underestimated.

Sloane was older than Daala, darker-skinned, and so sternly professional that Daala hadn't worked out yet what Sloane thought of her. But she was competent, and she had carried out her orders as instructed. She had fought viciously, but had prioritized information over destruction. This enemy fleet might not be the only one. They needed prisoners who could be made to talk - or could be made into examples.

This was a very good outcome. Still, it rankled at Daala, having to give orders from so far away. After years with nothing to do but run drills and supervise scientists, she itched to get into the thick of things. To take down an enemy herself.

"Good work, Vice-Admiral," she said to the hologram of Sloane. "Transfer Greejatus to Coruscant by the quickest means; the Emperors wish to interrogate him personally. Ensure all artifacts at the new observatory are documented and send the full report directly to Emperor Tarkin. With the rest of your forces, continue pursuit."

"Understood, sir," said Sloane, before winking out.

Daala took a breath, then composed a short message to Tarkin, letting him know there would soon be a prisoner for him.

*

Tarkin stood in the interrogation room, looking Janus Greejatus up and down. Formerly a member of Palpatine's Ruling Council, now Greejatus only looked like a frightened old man. He was wrapped in a simple prison garment, locked into an interrogation chair in a hidden room, deep below the same Palace he'd once glided through like a prince.

There were other officers in the room, black-uniformed men whose primary duty was carrying out interrogations like these. Their records were impeccable and their loyalties to the new regime had been triple-checked. They would be carrying out the bulk of the work; Tarkin was too busy to do it himself. But he'd wanted to be here for the important parts. For the beginning.

"Janus," he said, "we've worked together in the past. I expected better of you. In particular, I expected you and all your cohort to understand the value of stability in the galaxy. But it seems you'd rather chase the dreams of a dead man."

"Your government is illegitimate," Greejatus sneered back but there was fear in his eyes. The interrogation chair shackled him upright, his hands raised in mock surrender. The sharp points and electrodes that would soon be applied hung in his direct line of sight, polished as teeth. An interrogation droid floated in the air making its trademark high-pitched humming sound. "And these pitiful tools won't make me give you anything."

Tarkin studied his nails. "Well, if they can't within a reasonable time frame, then your next stop is Mustafar. Emperor Vader hasn't been in a merciful mood. I can't imagine why not."

It would have been more efficient to send Greejatus to Vader directly. But mind probes were stressful for Vader, and although his condition was improving, M4 hadn't cleared him yet for that sort of thing. Tarkin was going to be careful with Vader's limits this time. Imperial technologies did the job nearly as well, if one had patience.

"Vader doesn't frighten me," Greejatus lied. His fear was clear from the speed of his pulse, the widening of his eyes. "Why fear the apprentice when you're used to the master?"

"Why, indeed," said Tarkin. He gestured sharply to the other officers. "Begin."

The interrogation droid floated forward at a leisurely pace, letting the point of its needle drift towards Greejatus's face before it chose where to inject its mind-altering, truth-inducing payload.

Tarkin waited until the first round of electric shocks seared across the man's body, until he heard the first scream of pain, before he swept from the room and turned to other matters.

*

Greejatus held out for a day and a half before breaking. Tarkin was grudgingly impressed. The man was neither young nor healthy, and it had been a full thirty-six hours drugged and tortured, alternating between agonizingly long rounds of pain and brief respites in the cramped, cold darkness of a cell designed not to allow real rest. Respites of an hour at most, in which his mind could recollect itself enough to feel a proper creeping dread of the next round. In some ways, Vader's mind probes were more merciful. They tore their answers from the fabric of the mind itself, but at least they did it quickly.

Tarkin received the message from the interrogation officers when Greejatus began to give useful answers. He calmly finished his meeting before making his way to the detention level with Nemeus at his side. The officers could follow the list of desired questions themselves, but Tarkin wanted to be there himself for the tail end of it. Both to see the result with his own eyes, and to ask a few additional things

Greejatus sagged in his bonds as Tarkin strode back into the cell. He looked at least five years older than he had looked thirty-six hours ago. He was not currently weeping, but there were tears and snot and blood half-dried all down his front, as well as a spidery network of electrical burns. His eyes were dark and sunken. The officers beside him stood unmoved; for them this was routine.

The kind of men who had served on Palpatine's Ruling Council weren't Tarkin's type. But there was something faintly pleasant nonetheless about watching a person, any person, brought low and broken to his will.

"Janus," he said coolly in greeting. "I hear you've decided to be reasonable."

"Please," Greejatus whimpered. "I told you everything already."

"Let's have it once more for the record," said Tarkin.

He made Greejatus go through it all again. Nemeus, beside him, was quietly going through the officers' transcript, noting any inconsistencies between this version and the first. He didn't give the signal that he'd found any, and Tarkin didn't see anything in Greejatus's face but humiliated compliance.

As with any true plan of Palpatine's, the information was circuitous. There were deceptions within deceptions, contingencies within contingencies. Tarkin was glad that there were multiple verbatim records to be pored over later, because even he wasn't going to remember it all. But the basic idea was clear enough.

There would be a brief time exploring the Unknown Regions for instructions and artifacts. Then the offensive would start. Worlds would be scoured, not with a large and final blast like that of the Death Star, but with slower and more chaotic effects, causing their citizens to cry to the Empire for aid. The ships that came would be trapped and destroyed. The three other traitor factions would be manipulated into positions where both they and the true Empire could be blasted away. The apparent goal was to wear Vader and Tarkin's forces down until there was little left. Then to depose Coruscant itself. And after that-

After that was where Greejatus's knowledge faltered. It was where the dutiful interrogation officers had ended their transcript, noting that they seemed to have come to the end of Greejatus' knowledge.

Tarkin was not convinced.

"After Vader and I are deposed," he demanded, "what then? What system of government swoops in to replace us? You're a member of the former Ruling Council, concerned with the very structure and function of the Imperial bureaucracy. I _refuse_ to believe you haven't asked."

"At the appointed time, the true Empire will rise," Greejatus insisted.

"How?"

"I do not know how."

Nemeus and the officers on duty were both carefully transcribing all this. "But you must know something," Tarkin insisted. "You're a toady, but you aren't an _idiot,_ or you wouldn't have survived in Palpatine's good graces this long. If you're convinced of this prediction, you must have been told some small thing to make it plausible. Some _hint._ "

"Nothing," Greejatus insisted.

Tarkin turned to the interrogation officers coldly. "Turn the machine back on."

Blue lines of electricity sparked along the polished points in front of Greejatus's face. He struggled, flinching uselessly away as all prisoners did. "I told you everything. Please. I don't _know-_ "

"Give me one detail, Janus. A single threadbare reason why you believe this plan isn't nonsense designed to plunge the galaxy into anarchy."

"I don't-" said Greejatus. One of the device's needles jammed into his skin and he roared with pain, convulsing as the lightning covered his body.

"What is the 'true Empire?'" Tarkin demanded. "What does that mean? What makes the next Empire true if this one wasn't?"

Greejatus made a despairing, incoherent noise. The machine shocked him again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tarkin saw a glance pass between the interrogation officers. They were well trained in detecting the signs that a prisoner was or wasn't all wrung out. They likely found this excessive. Tarkin could not have explained his conviction that there was more to uncover. But he was not going to stop. Not until he had his answers or Greejatus was dead.

"Who _precisely,_ " said Tarkin, "is going to _rule_ this new Empire?"

Greejatus took a hurried breath, seeming on the edge of hysterics. "You won't believe me if I tell you. You won't-"

The interrogation officers looked up at that with interest. _That_ wasn't the cry of a man who knew nothing more.

"Try me," Tarkin said acidly, as the current surged over Greejatus's body again. "Who's going to rule it, Janus?"

"Palpatine will," Greejatus panted.

One of the interrogation officers reached for the button to shock him again. P lenty of prisoners began to spew absurdities, anything that came to their mind, at a stage like this. But Tarkin held out a quelling hand.

"Emperor Palpatine," said Tarkin, "is dead. Is he not?"

All Greejatus gave him in answer was a low, despairing giggle.

Tarkin looked at Greejatus steadily. "We both know he was a student of Darth Plagueis. One of his goals was to unlock the mysteries of life and death. Has he found some way to survive his own apparent death? To return when the time is right? Is that what you think I won't believe?"

"Yes," said Greejatus, sagging slightly with guilt and relief.

Tarkin wasn't ready to let him have relief yet. He reached into the machine and grabbed Greejatus by the collar of his prisoner uniform, yanking him forward against his restaints. "By what method will he return?"

"I don't know," said Greejatus. Tarkin shook him a little, and he hurriedly continued. "He didn't give us details. It's beyond our understanding. A Sith mystery. I can give you - words. Names. But they'll only be words to you."

"I am _entirely_ out of patience," said Tarkin, "with people assuming I won't believe or understand them. Let me make an educated guess. He's figured out how to make the energies of his mind persist after his body's death, a sort of ghost. And now that ghost is floating around somewhere, observing your efforts. Perhaps giving instructions. Perhaps finding someone else's body to possess?"

"No," said Greejatus, but he looked shaken, suddenly uncertain. "Not in the version I heard. I wasn't told about a ghost, or about possessing any body that wasn't his. We were told that, at the appointed time, the true Emperor will return in the flesh."

Tarkin frowned. He wasn't sure yet how to reconcile this with Vader's dreams. But it was also a good sign; it meant Greejatus wasn't only saying what he wanted to hear. "How?"

"He didn't tell us."

"You said you knew names."

"I know one." Greejatus met Tarkin's eyes with an urgent expression, as if he was now disclosing the greatest secret of all. "Exegol."

Tarkin had never heard that name before. It sounded like a place name. "Exegol? Where is that?"

Greejatus sagged back, and he began to laugh bitterly. It was the laugh of a man who had truly come to the end. "I don't know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, we've gotten to the end of the revision/posting spree! From here on out if I want to post new chapters I have to actually uhhh write them, whoops. So we will be returning to a somewhat more sedate posting schedule. :P
> 
> I'm still writing a lot as a coping mechanism, though, and there should be some fun chapters coming up! So hopefully you won't have to wait too long. <3
> 
> Comments are still love.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grand Admiral Daala has some information about Exegol - and she may be in trouble for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, my face is red, because Rise of Skywalker is out on streaming and I watched it again, and it turned out that when I remembered Exegol being this super secret thing that no one had ever heard of, I was _wildly wrong._ In actual Disney canon everyone and their dog has heard of it and Luke was looking for it actively before he fucked off to his island, they all just couldn't figure out where it was.
> 
> I agonized about this for approximately 20 minutes and then was like, fuck it, this is a silly AU anyway, it can be a silly AU where Exegol is MOAR SECRET.
> 
> (Shout-out to shiro-tora3 on Tumblr who encouraged this approach!)
> 
> Um also Content Note: this chapter has brief-ish (~1 paragraph) mentions of physical abuse & sexual coercion. Neither actually happens onscreen.

Tarkin called Vader up immediately with the news. It was still early in the day, but Vader was awake in his tank, and Tarkin summarized the interrogation's main points aloud. Vader was both pleased and disturbed; he didn't know what or where Exegol was.

Nobody, as Tarkin quickly discovered, knew where Exegol was. It wasn't in any of the Imperial maps of the galaxy. There was no hint of it in the Imperial archives. The Imperial translating droids didn't have that word in their vocabularies.

"Is it Sith?" Tarkin asked impatiently. "I have reason to believe that it could be. Is it another one of these blasted words you're not permitted to translate?"

"No, my lord," said the Empire's best translating droid, prim and silver-plated. "I'm sorry. It's phonotactically consistent with the Sith language, but the word 'Exegol' appears in none of the six million forms of communication known to me. If you wish for a list of the top one thousand inexact matches, in descending order of probability-"

Tarkin waved the droid away.

Perhaps there was no Exegol. He was not so foolish as to discount that possibility. Perhaps Greejatus had hoped to fool him by spitting out some random name. That sort of thing had been happening lately.

But there were other possibilities. Palpatine had once told Tarkin the story of how he'd kept the planet Kamino hidden by having it erased from all Republic records. Perhaps Exegol had been erased the same way. Or perhaps it was a cryptic, private nickname for a location that was officially called something else.

But there was no good way of telling where to look for it, or what sort of place it might be.

Tarkin had too much else going on to dwell on it. Matters of state would have been a busy full-time job even without fighting a war of succession on six fronts. Natasi had been overseeing those efforts admirably, and Tarkin sent her a copy of the interrogation transcript. The Imperial fleet would want to counter the plans that Greejatus had so helpfully outlined. He expected her to have questions; the edged close to some of the topics with which he had not yet trusted anyone but Vader. Particularly the topic of ghosts.

He did not, however, expect the genuine fear on Natasi's face when she entered the throne room late that morning. _Sir,_ she'd messaged him, _I need to speak with you as soon as possible._

He'd cleared out a spot for her in his schedule within the hour. Natasi knew how to keep extraneous emotions from showing in her face, but as she knelt before the pair of thrones, he could tell something was off. Her shoulders were drawn up more tightly than normal. The skin of her face was pale.

"Grand Admiral Daala," he acknowledged, intrigued. He wanted to keep this as formal as possible. Work was still work, regardless of their personal arrangements. "You have new information for me, I take it, about the campaign in the Unknown Regions."

"Yes, my lord." Much as he liked being called "sir," he'd convinced her that in formal circumstances, in front of people, she still needed to use the correct title. She raised her head and met his gaze, her green eyes reflecting what little light existed in the room. "The information is sensitive. May I speak with you alone?"

Tarkin raised an eyebrow, but Natasi had never abused a privilege like this before, and her whole demeanor screamed that something serious was going on. "Of course, Grand Admiral. Guards, leave us."

The Royal Guards filed out, and Natasi remained motionless until the second the door clicked shut. "Sir, I want your guarantee that this information will not be used against me."

Tarkin frowned. "That's vague," he said, "but I have no reason to use anything against you. Anything you can tell me about Rax's faction can only be of benefit to all three of us. What's your information?"

She squared her shoulders. She was even paler than before; she seemed to be making some immense mental effort. Tarkin did not understand. Surely it must not be so difficult to state a fact. Not to him.

"Sir," said Natasi, "I know where Exegol is."

Tarkin frowned more deeply. How could she know that when no one else in the Empire did? She had been safely tucked away in a black hole cluster for three years. "And where would that be?"

She took another breath. Was that a _shake_ in her voice? Tarkin leaned forward slightly, bewildered.

"It's in the Maw Cluster, sir," she said, in the crispest, most deliberately unemotional tone he had ever heard. Something went out of her as she said it, from the cant of her shoulders, as if this had been a weight she had secretly carried. As if she had never expected, in the long run, that she'd tell.

*

Daala had spent three long years supervising research projects in the Maw Installation. Those years had been lonely and routine. She'd had to improvise at times to keep everyone working as instructed; some of the scientists had needed careful coddling, or threats and pain, or measured amounts of both. She'd made decisions in that vein. But nothing had truly _happened,_ beyond what went in the notes she kept on the Installation's progress. Nothing noteworthy.

Almost nothing.

Six months in to her exile, the _Gorgon_ 's scanners had picked up an Imperial cruiser approaching, towing a cargo that looked like miscellaneous shipbuilding parts. The cruiser's crew had the appropriate access codes, and Daala had rushed to the hangar, believing it was Tarkin, _finally_ Tarkin. But it wasn't.

Instead, the figure who'd stepped out of the cruiser to greet her was Emperor Palpatine.

"My lord," she'd said, dropping to one knee and freezing to the spot. Daala had never met the Emperor before. She didn't understand why he was here. Tarkin had told her that no one but himself knew the route through the Maw Cluster's treacherous gravity wells to this base. Had something happened? Had Tarkin been hurt?

"Admiral Daala," the Emperor acknowledged. He was a stooped old man with an extraordinarily wrinkled face, wrapped in a simple black cloak; Daala remembered him wearing something grander in the first official broadcasts, but people said that over the years he'd grown more impatient with that sort of thing. He walked with a black cane. His eyes were alert, belying the impression of age, and his voice was gravelly but gentle. "You may rise. Don't worry; nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I was passing through, and I thought I would see this research station so precious to the Tarkin Initiative with my own eyes."

"We are at your disposal, my lord," said Daala, standing.

He wanted a tour. She obediently showed him the four Star Destroyers,and the asteroid cluster where the Maw's real work took place. Everything was proceeding on schedule. The Emperor asked intelligent questions, but didn't pry into the details of the work. Daala was not at all sure what he was here for.

"Something troubles you," the Emperor said at last, as they stood together on a balcony overlooking a large construction floor.

Daala did not look directly at him. "May I speak freely, my lord?"

"Of course."

"I'm flattered by your interest in this installation. But I was given to understand that you do not usually inspect such facilities yourself. It's beneath you."

She could feel more than see his amused, sideways look. "You were hoping for Governor Tarkin."

"I am always hoping for that, my lord." She returned the sideways look. "I am curious how you came to be passing through this area with cargo like yours."

 _Passing through_ was a transparent lie. Nobody was ever just _passing through_ the Akkadese Maelstrom within which the Maw Cluster lurked. People who made to Kessel, the Maelstrom's single settled world, were there for a specific purpose. To go further than Kessel, into the Cluster itself - well, only a few people even knew that was possible.

"You believed no one else but Governor Tarkin knew of this location," the Emperor countered, indulgently amused.

Daala squared her shoulders, focusing on the workers who methodically assembled components on the floor below. "That's not a concern, my lord. You are of course entitled to all information on the projects undergone in your name."

The Emperor chuckled. "You need not try to protect Tarkin. He intended no true disloyalty. He was foolish to believe I could not find this place, but wise to see the need for its creation. A private place, free from bureaucratic interference, where the Empire can pursue the technologies of military dominion as it will. When I learned of it, I had to see it for myself. And I had to see if it was being maintained as it should. Do not take that personally; I did not doubt you very much. Your record of service is short, but effective, and it seems you've continued to be effective here. It is harder than it sounds, keeping troops on task through long isolation. But you have a gift for that, it seems. For making them wish to obey."

She ducked her head, acknowledging the compliment. "I was taught by the best, my lord."

"Indeed you were," he said thoughtfully. "Taught to rule."

She did look at him then, confused. Command, yes, she'd been taught that set of skills. _Ruling_ was another thing. _Ruling_ involved more complex groups, whole planets full of people. Control of the very kind of life she'd been shut out of.

But she knew what he meant. That kind of life still went on without her, and it would still be there waiting for her when she returned. Daala didn't know if she ever wanted to move into politics as Tarkin had. But she had always wanted, very badly, to exist in that world. To have the kind of power that shook things, _did_ things. To show the whole galaxy what she was capable of. To watch her enemies go up in the brightest of flames.

Tarkin was the only person who'd ever given her that kind of freedom. He'd given her ships, missions that mattered, beautiful deadly things to accomplish. And then, when she became inconvenient for him, he'd taken it back.

There was something like regret in the Emperor's voice. "I'm sure Governor Tarkin hasn't forgotten you. He will call you back when he feels ready. But I would suggest taking a longer view. Those who are destined for greatness must first bide their time, set their pieces into place, and you are better positioned for that here than most. I'm sure it rankles you to hear, but you're still young. You have the time, the resources, and the mental strength to prepare for something greater." He leaned forward on his cane, smiling thoughtfully down at the work floor. A few workers looked up briefly, noting the eminent presences who watched, but none of them were fools enough to slacken their pace. "The projects you construct here will be deadlier than his. Their impact on the galaxy could be larger, if they are properly applied. In time, your legacy could outshine even his."

This, Daala mused, was how Palpatine had risen to be Emperor. He had the knack of reading people, even on a first meeting. He could cut straight to the heart of what they wanted, even things they weren't quite ready to admit. And without ever quite making a concrete promise, he could paint those things to hang in the air before them, luring them eagerly down the paths he thought best.

He was the best at it that she'd ever seen. She wanted very much to believe him. To think her patience at her task could make her great. But men only flattered Daala like this when they wanted something.

She looked away again, holding her face rigid. "What would you request of the Maw Installation, my lord?"

Palpatine turned and walked further into the station, leaning on his cane. Daala followed. She could hear the small smile in his voice. "Little enough. But I'm impressed with this idea of a secret base on which to develop valuable projects, and the Maw Cluster is ideal in more ways than you know. I'd like to start a small project of my own further in."

She frowned. "How can you go further into the Maw Cluster, my lord? The Maw Installation is placed at its center."

"As measured from the outside, yes, but this many gravity wells this close together affect the shape of space. I have identified an appropriate spot for my needs."

"Where, my lord?"

His smile widened. " _That_ is need-to-know, and only I need to know. I've gone to great lengths to ensure only I will be able to navigate where I am going. I won't require anything strenuous from you in the meantime; the project is simple enough to handle with my own resources. All I'll need is your cooperation. Passage and refueling here without too many questions asked. Perhaps the odd moment with your scientists."

"Of course, my lord. You're entitled to whatever you like." Inside, she was uneasy. Why was this necessary? If the Emperor had ideas for weapons projects, why not hand them down to the Tarkin Initiative, or to some other existing R&D group? Did he believe that the Initiative was compromised? Did he believe Tarkin, of all people, would betray him?

The Emperor nodded acknowledgement. "I do admire your work here. When my own work comes to fruition, some of the glory will be yours. But in the meantime, you must be patient. Bide your time. You don't need to mention this to anyone."

"I don't need to mention this to anyone," Daala agreed.

"It doesn't need to go in your official report."

"It doesn't need to go in my official report."

"Good. I think we will work together well for the good of the Empire, you and I."

What followed, over the next two and a half years, was more or less what the Emperor promised. He didn't trouble her much. He flew in, every once in a while, with a cruiser and a baffling assortment of parts. Sometimes her officers waved him through; sometimes he wanted to stop and chat, maybe to pick up a few minor supplies, or to borrow a scientist - sworn to secrecy - for a few days.

Daala couldn't work out what he was really up to. The cruisers came with manifests, like any other Imperial ship, and she used her prerogative as commander to check them over. Lists of parts that appeared to match with what visual and electronic scanners picked up, though it didn't add up to any specific project she could clearly picture. Human cargo, sometimes. Fuel and other sundries. And for a destination, no coordinates, but only the single word, the same each time. _Exegol._

Daala would have obeyed the Emperor anyway - that was the _point_ of an Emperor - but after each visit, it was easier than expected to put him out of her mind. She wrote up her notes for those days as if nothing at all had occurred. Much of the time, it was automatic. And when she'd written her final report, she'd worked from those notes. With all the other shocking things going on, it hadn't even occurred to her to add in anything else.

She was meticulous in her work. She had never slipped up this badly before. As soon as she saw the word _Exegol_ at the end of the transcript, she'd realized what sort of thing she must have been hiding for Palpatine, and how vital it would be to the Emperors who succeeded him. And she'd realized, in the same moment, that she should have said something earlier. She could not explain to herself why she had not. Even now, knowing what was at stake, it had taken an intense emotional effort to make the words come out. Like pushing through a deep fear, swallowing rage or revulsion, except it wasn't those particular emotions, or any other one she knew how to name. It frightened her, not being able to explain.

What frightened her more was the expression she saw, on Tarkin's face, as she struggled to do so.

*

"This wasn't in your report," Tarkin said at last, as her attempts to describe it in words wound down.

"No, sir. I was ordered to keep it out of my notes, and I worked from my notes when I was writing the report for you. I didn't think-"

"You didn't think," Tarkin agreed, standing up from his throne.

"Sir, you guaranteed this information would not be used against me."

"I made no such guarantee." He stalked toward her, royal robe and cape and circlet and all. "You knew better than this, Natasi. I haven't told you everything, but you knew very well that Vader and I were fighting loyalists to Palpatine. You knew that this group was considered our highest priority and our greatest threat, and that they were specifically searching for devices he left behind. You knew there were such devices being constructed directly in your backyard, and that Palpatine intended to hide them from me. Yet despite knowing all of this, you didn't think to mention any of it until one of Palpatine's cronies was forced to divulge the place's name."

He was inches away from her now, and there was such a cold rage in his voice that she thought he might hit her. He'd never done that in anger before, not outside the bounds of a proper kink scene, but at times like this it always occurred to her. Corporal punishment had been routine in Daala's childhood; it seemed naive to believe it couldn't happen between adults.

"No one but Palpatine could navigate to Exegol," she replied icily. "And Palpatine is dead. I didn't know there was any _doubt_ about that until this morning, sir. You could have kept me better informed."

"No, my dear; you're too smart for that excuse. Were it otherwise, I would demote you to a rank that better suited your abilities." He took her by the jaw and forced her gaze upwards into his. Daala was tall for a woman, but Tarkin was a few inches taller, and he knew how to make the difference matter. "Did he suborn you to his side? Did he think to put a mole in the one part of this administration that I trusted without thought?"

" _No,_ sir," Daala snapped, holding his gaze. "All I did was let his ships pass through when he asked. He was the Emperor at the time, if you recall. He had a right to that."

Tarkin was not mollified. "Did he tell you his plans?"

"Only that he was working on a project. Nothing more."

"Did he seduce you? Is that what this is?"

"Of course not!"

Men made this assumption about Daala sometimes. That, if she'd fucked Tarkin in exchange for her rank, she'd fuck anyone for a sufficient reward. Plenty of men had made the worst sorts of passes at Daala for this reason, even on the inside of the Maw, hinting at wealth and connections on the outside that could be shared, if she was a good girl and cooperated. Daala had calmly thrown each such person out the airlock.

It hurt more than all the rest of this combined, hearing the accusation from Tarkin's lips. He of all people should know that she was no mere opportunist. She was _his._

"Then explain to me," Tarkin snarled, "why you knowingly kept information from me that could mean the difference between winning and losing this war. Information that could mean Vader's _life-_ "

"It doesn't mean any of those things!" Daala shouted. Something had boiled over in her, and it burned so hot that even Tarkin drew back. "Of course I knew you were looking for artifacts. Did you think that escaped my notice? We are losing ground against the Rebels and you and Lord Vader don't care, because you're so fixed on tracking down a million old projects of Palpatine's that aren't a present threat to you, not for any reason you've deigned to share. Every night when you summon me you're more exhausted than the last, because you are choosing to burn everything you have chasing _him_. The Empire is going to fall apart because you can't rein in Emperor Vader's excesses or even moderate your efforts to appease him. For all I knew until this morning, the project on Exegol might have been nothing. Rax's faction might never have known about it, let alone how to get there. Palpatine might not even have finished whatever's there. Did you think I was going to add yet another wild-sounding lead to your ever-growing list of them, knowing you had no way of following where it led, so that I could watch you tear yourself and the Empire apart over it that much more? I refuse to do that, _sir!"_

Tarkin had taken a half-step back, but he was still holding her by the face. His eyes narrowed consideringly. Daala felt very raw. She felt that this outburst was true - she had been holding something like it in for days - but it was not her real reason for forgetting. She still did not understand that reason, and it unnerved her.

She held his gaze.

When he moved in again, it took all her effort not to flinch. But he did not hit her. He kissed her, very lightly, on the forehead. His face was now unreadable.

"I forgive you, my dear," said Tarkin. "Your approach must have seemed reasonable to you at the time. But I cannot excuse you from its natural consequences. You're going to explain what's just happened here to Emperor Vader, face to face. We'll see if his mood is as accommodating as mine."

He let go of her, and she stood still, breathing shakily. She had not yet let herself think of how _Vader_ would react.

"We leave for Mustafar immediately," he added, before she could put words together in response. "Pack your things."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> betrayaaaaallll!!!!
> 
> *cackles unnecessarily*


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An offer of help arrives at Fortress Vader from a very unexpected source.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all y'all in comments: "Oh no! A cliffhanger! What will happen to Daala?"
> 
> me, sipping evil drink: "good question! glad to see you're emotionally invested. here is a new chapter that doesn't answer the question at ALL"

It was Vader's first day authorized to get out of his tank again, and it was proving to be a busy one. Tarkin called Vader while he was still waking up, summarizing the results of Janus Greejatus's interrogation for him. That was disturbing enough - what was Exegol? What did _in the flesh_ mean? - but Vader was used to disturbing things. He pushed ahead, put his suit on, and listened to Piett's morning briefing fully clothed for once. Almost as soon as that was done, Tarkin called again, with a message that was oddly vague.

"Grand Admiral Daala has some information on Exegol that will be of use to us," said Tarkin. He looked oddly distracted, as if something was churning in his mind that he didn't want to let on about just yet. "I'd much rather we discussed it in person as opposed to remotely. She and I will be on our way to Mustafar shortly. I'll tell you more when we get there."

He barely gave Vader time to affirm these plans before he cut the comm.

Whatever Daala's information was, it had clearly distressed Tarkin. No doubt they'd uncovered some new unpleasantness of Palpatine's, layered on top of all the other ones. But it was very strange that he'd chosen to bring Daala along in person, and endure all the awkwardness of having her and Vader in the same room again. Maybe the information was very complex; maybe Vader would have follow-up questions only Daala could answer. But it couldn't have been all bad, or Tarkin wouldn't have called it useful.

Vader did not think he had heard the name _Exegol_ before, but there was some faint Dark Side feeling in it. As if he _should_ have heard it. Or as if it was so cosmically significant that even its name, divorced from context, held power. Or, perhaps, Vader only felt the Dark Side because he was so on edge.

Those dreams were still haunting him every night. It was perversely becoming routine. What did it mean if Greejatus didn't know anything about a ghost? Maybe Palpatine hadn't thought anyone needed to know about the ghost part. Maybe Palpatine had intended to transfer his consciousness to Vader's body immediately, and he hadn't planned on Vader being strong enough to draw out the fight. Maybe that whole _in the flesh_ part only meant that Palpatine intended to return in Vader's body; but Vader wasn't sure how that matched with the rest of the plan, in which _defeating_ Vader was a key objective. Or maybe Vader's body was a temporary stop until Palpatine arranged something better. It was a very fucked-up body, after all. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to stay there forever.

Either way, if they found Exegol, it would be dangerous to go there. The Force might bend in the ghost's favor in a place like that. There might be mechanisms of some sort, strong enough to subdue Vader and give Palpatine his body for good. Luring him there, under the auspices of defeating this ghost, might be part of the plan.

But it boiled down to a simple choice: go there if he could and see what happened, or hide. If Vader hid, he would still have to fight off this ghost every night. Better to go to the source.

He was getting ahead of himself. The information Daala had was clearly more complex than a mere location. There was no point planning until she arrived and explained. In the meantime, he would train.

After his week in the tank - and two weeks unconscious before that - M4 had cleared Vader only for the lightest routines. So, in the cavernous space of his training room, that was what he did. Warm-up stretches, physiotherapy movements, a few slow moving meditations in the Sith style, both unarmed and with his saber. Vader wanted to whirl across the room more fiercely, to smash something, but even these gentler routines were a relief after so long confined. He liked feeling the moderate resistance of his suit's weight and pushing fluidly through, putting his muscles back to work.

In fact, by the standards of a first day out of the tank, Vader was feeling better than normal. Everything hurt as always, and there were many reasons to be unhappy about life, but he felt less nausea than he should have. Less fatigue. His head was clearer.

How often, under Palpatine, had Vader been allowed to rest as long as he needed? How often had M4 been allowed to take the time and care she really wanted? Vader was so used to pushing himself. This time, after breaking down so disastrously, he'd accepted that he must do as M4 said - and Palpatine had not been around to hurry her. The results of not pushing were more noticeable than expected. And, as M4 had sternly reminded him, he was still not yet fully healed. If he could refrain from pushing even longer, maybe he would improve even more.

Vader would never be able-bodied. His lungs would never work on their own; he would never not be in pain. But maybe there was room for some subtler improvements, after all.

Then again, Palpatine had used such hopes against him before. Cajoling him into this or that agonizing ritual, promising that if he could focus his hate enough, he'd heal. Only to chuckle and shake his head at Vader's weakness when the results were nothing different from before. Vader would not get his hopes up like that. He would do as M4 asked and not think about it much. There was plenty else to think about right now.

*

He barely had time to read the full interrogation transcript before an unexpected visitor arrived. Not Tarkin and Daala; they were still several hours out. It was Ninth Sister, one of the ex-Inquisitors, who suddenly appeared in her TIE Advanced, requesting permission to land and bargain. Vader was unsure what they had to bargain about, but he went to the first floor to meet her. In the worst case - if she was here to try to kill him, or to beg to be made his apprentice - he could kill her with ease. If it was something more original, she might be worth his time.

Ninth Sister was a Dowutin, an ugly and unreasonably large species of humanoid. She annoyingly stood even taller than Vader, and was broader through the shoulders as well. A pair of tusklike horns jutted out from the sides of her chin, and a pair of red shades covered her eyes, one of which was cybernetic. She had discarded her Imperial armor in favor of civilian clothes. A pair of loose gray trousers and a layered arrangement of tunics, belts, and jackets in gray and brown. Her lightsaber hung at her side, an Inquisitor's model with the characteristic black, disklike hilt. She stood on the catwalk in front of Vader's entrance hall as the front portcullis opened. When it had risen high enough, with no more genuflection than a simple nod, she walked right in.

"You will explain yourself," said Vader, but he did not move to stop her. The portcullis ground shut again behind her.

"Straight to the chase," Ninth Sister agreed. "Both of us prefer that, don't we? I have a proposition, Lord Vader. I want to work with you."

It was the apprenticeship, then, after all. With a flash of rage, stronger than he could control, Vader reached forward in the Force and closed her throat.

"I have already made this clear," he snarled, feeling her struggle for air in his grip. "I have no desire for an apprentice-"

Most people, when they were Force choked, drew a hand up instinctively to their neck. It was a reflex that was hard to suppress, even for people who were perfectly aware that the Force was immaterial and that their hand would accomplish nothing.

Ninth Sister did not do this, Instead she reached out and immediately Force choked him back.

He was stronger than her. It took only a moment to break her telekinetic grip and push her away. But the feel of his ravaged windpipe tightening against the push of the respirator was distracting. As he recovered his focus, he realized he'd let go of her - exactly as she'd intended.

"Good," said Ninth Sister, as if nothing at all had happened, "because I'm not offering to be one. I want to work with you for just this one mission. The one you're planning right now."

"How do you know what I am planning?" Vader was nonplussed. He barely even _had_ a plan.

"Just a feeling." The entrance hall was designed mostly to intimidate visitors, with its high arched ceiling and its stark red-black walls. But it was also where Vader, and sometimes servants or other guests, waited for visitors to arrive. So there were rudimentary nods to comfort, including a few low black couches. Vader and Tarkin sat on those couches and kept each other company sometimes, when they didn't feel like moving to another room. Ninth Sister sat herself down on one.

Her body language was very casual. It wasn't that she didn't fear Vader; it was just that she was naturally blunt, and had long ago learned to speak her mind through her fear.

"Third Brother says he's going to be a bounty hunter," she said. "Twelfth Sister took three of the kids and flew off to parts unknown. Me, though, I've been meditating. And it feels like the Dark Side is shifting. I noticed it as soon as you walked in the room last week, and I'm noticing it in here now even more. You're the Sith master now; that's the kind of change that ripples out, affects other things, if you're paying attention. But it feels to me like the change isn't over. Like there's one more thing you have to do."

When people first laid eyes on Ninth Sister, they usually took her for a fearsome warrior. In fact, by Sith standards she was mediocre. She could dispatch opponents brutally, but she overrelied on her size and strength, leaving openings that a quicker, cannier fighter could exploit. Ninth Sister's true talent lay in perception. Long ago, she'd been one of the Jedi Order's most sensitive mind-readers. When she fell to the Dark Side and embraced its wild emotions, her sense for emotion in others had only grown keener.

Early in Ninth Sister's training, Vader had carved out her left eye, to mark her as someone whose sight was her most dangerous ability. And to remind her that even inborn gifts could be taken away. He did not want to look into the cybernetic lens that now replaced it.

It was strange; he had lived with this and his other crimes for so long. It wasn't that they hadn't hurt to think about, but they had been background, like the aching of a joint that had ached that same way for nineteen years. Now that his master was gone, they were starting to bother him differently. Guilty itches under his skin. Old wounds that were beginning, all of a sudden, to fester.

But if Ninth Sister sensed his current battle with Palpatine, with so little to go on, then he was intrigued. He could take a bit of festering.

He cautiously sat on the couch opposite her. "And what do you believe that thing is?"

She regarded him levelly. "Lord Sidious isn't dead, is he? Not all the way."

"I have begun to believe it is so."

"And you want to _make_ him be dead all the way."

So she _had_ guessed correctly. Or else she had a very alarming, very improbable alternate source of intel. Either way, he was intrigued. "Indeed."

"So, I'm in," said Ninth Sister. "Fuck that guy. Let's go kill him as many times as it takes. Whatever you need me to do..." She trailed off and squinted at him, distracted. "There is something _really_ strange about your aura in the Force, by the way. It was there last time too. Seems related to all this, but I can't get a good read."

Vader was even more intrigued. "Does it look like a haunting?"

"Dunno. What's a haunting supposed to look like? There's something oogy hovering real close around you, that's all. Can't tell if it's coming from the inside or the outside."

Vader had not told M4 about his ghost. He had told Tarkin, but only under duress. Both of them were non-Force-sensitive, and they would not understand. It had not occurred to him that an Inquisitor might.

It was more of a relief than Vader had anticipated, knowing someone else could see the ghost, even dimly. It wasn't just him. He wasn't crazy.

Perhaps Ninth Sister could help him work on strategies to destroy this ghost. Or even just to make it leave him alone for a while, until they could get to Exegol and destroy it at the source. Perhaps he could order her to stay awake tonight, near his quarters, and observe what occurred in the Force while he dreamed.

But, aside from M4 and the Royal Guards that had used to be foisted on him, Vader had never allowed anyone to watch him sleep. That required trust. And after everything else that had happened between them, he hardly thought he could trust Ninth Sister. The teachings of the Sith said that a master like Vader should abuse his immediate underlings however he could - and that they, correspondingly, should betray him.

"You have intuited a great deal of sensitive information," Vader pointed out in a low voice. "At a particularly convenient time."

Ninth Sister shrugged. "Guess I've still got it."

Vader reached out his hand again and grabbed hold of her mind.

It was not a full mind probe, not yet. If she did not resist, it might not have to be one. It was less than what he'd done with Tagge; it would not tear out whole memories. But he needed to feel the truth of her answers to any simple question, in all their nuance, fully and viscerally. "Are you working for Lord Sidious?"

Ninth Sister could have put up a fight, but she knew better. She could guess exactly why Vader felt the need for this. "Nope."

"Do you intend to betray me?"

"Nah."

"Have you volunteered for this mission out of a sincere desire to rid the galaxy of my former master for good? Or is there more?"

"I want him gone," she said flatly. "Not that you weren't a nightmare, but Lord Sidious designed the Inquisitor program. He made us what we are. You only carried out his plan. Once you'd sworn the apprentice oaths, I don't think you had that much more choice than we did. So if a gal's been set free from it all and she's in the mood for a little revenge, do I want to pointlessly die fighting _you,_ or do I want to go straight to the source? It's a no-brainer. We've got a, what's the phrase? A common enemy."

Vader let go of her mind and retracted his senses, more disturbed than ever. He could feel the truth of her words. She had worked all this out on her own, come to him of her own volition, and she had no intent to betray him. But it felt _wrong_ to him. It itched in that unfamiliar, just-waking-up part of his mind, the part that was less and less able to live with himself.

He had not had a choice in whether to lead the Inquisitors or not. His master had ordered that. But he'd had considerable leeway in _how_ to do it, so long as mission objectives were met. He had come up with his particular cruelties on his own, and they'd gone far beyond what was necessary. They both knew it.

"And you want it badly enough," he said, "to work even with me. After everything." After her eye, which glinted at him inorganically from behind its red shade. It would have been easier if she had gone away.

"Yeah."

Vader regarded her carefully. "What do you want in exchange?"

"Not much." She shrugged, which was a substantial gesture with shoulders like hers. "Getting paid would be nice, but I'll settle for room and board in a place that's not being detonated soon. And not having to call you 'master.'"

It was not just that, not in the long run. She had been honest when she said she wasn't trying to be Vader's apprentice. But life as a Sith was often lonely, and what Ninth Sister now faced could be lonelier still. The other surviving Inquisitors had already fled, and no ordinary person would ever understand the things they had survived. Vader could feel that Ninth Sister was already chewing over possible plans for later. If she could tolerate working with him in this new way, if he wasn't quite as cruel to her now that the power dynamic had shifted, then maybe she'd want to do it more. Maybe, despite the hate she carried for him, it would be better than being alone.

Vader wanted to spit insults at her. She had been _freed._ No free person should stay in an alliance that reminded them of captivity, just because they couldn't bear to strike out on their own. That was a show of weakness, and it disgusted him.

Yet wasn't that also what Vader had done? For so long, he'd had no one who mattered but Tarkin. He'd freed himself from Palpatine, but he'd needed Tarkin's help to do it. And, free as he supposedly was now, he still couldn't rule the galaxy, make a battle plan against his master's ghost, or even retain the will to live, except by clinging to the same man. One who'd been allowed to love him, even under Palpatine, because Palpatine judged them a suitable match.

Vader didn't want to think about this too long.

"You will be paid a contractor rate," he said. "You will stay in a guest room here until such time as we are able to leave for Exegol. You will address me as 'Lord Vader' or 'my lord.' Do not grow too comfortable."

He could feel her relief as he laid out the terms. "Sounds good, Lord Vader. Um... and I was wondering one other thing." Ninth Sister shifted again. Now she was affecting an even more casual stance on purpose, which was a thing Ninth Sister did when she felt shy. "If I'm just a freelancer now, and not an Inquisitor. Does that mean I get a name?"

Vader looked at her, fascinated. The Inquisitors had been stripped of their birth names when they fell, assigned only a number and a gender signifier. He had not expected her to direct such a question to _him;_ he had assumed that the ex-Inquisitors would work out such things on their own. But all at once it felt terribly, existentially important.

"Do you wish to be Masana Tide again?" he asked.

She looked back at him. There was a conflict in her; a roil of feelings that mirrored more of Vader's than he wanted to admit. She could _see,_ with her senses, the parts of him that mirrored her. Neither of them had to say aloud what rested on this question.

"Nah," she said at last, breaking his gaze. "I don't think I can be her anymore. Not really."

"Then what do you wish to be called?"

She worked her jaw. "Neap."

Vader drew himself up, displeased. Neap, the weakest tide, at a point where all the suns and moons that influenced an ocean balanced out. "That is a _pun._ "

"Yeah, I know, I know. You're the only one who gets to make puns around here." She shrugged again, deflecting not only his objection but the whole topic. "Also, what's Exegol?"

"We will discuss that upstairs in the conference room." Vader rose from his couch and turned towards the lift. Everything that could be settled, until Tarkin and Daala arrived, had now been settled. "There is an interrogation transcript you should read."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> team anti-sheev! they hate sheev even more than they hate each other. this is the drawback of being evil and making EVERYONE HATE YOU, sheev.
> 
> Daala will appear in the next chapter, I promise <3


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader confronts Daala and discovers the real reason for her seeming betrayal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sort of vaguely feel like this chapter needs a content warning but I'm really not sure what label is appropriate. TW: the characters continue being awful space fascists to each other? I guess.

Simple-minded though she was, Neap caught up on the essentials of the mission quickly. Vader ensured that Giana and Kal provided the necessities for her, both food and a room. Fortress Vader's upper floors had four guest rooms. One had become more or less officially Tarkin's room. Another currently housed Captain Piett, and for Neap, the servants were now preparing a third. Assuming that Daala roomed with Tarkin, that meant three of the guest rooms would be occupied simultaneously, which was rare.

At the appointed time, Tarkin and Daala descended in a _Lambda_ -class shuttle to the fortress's entrance. As befitted Tarkin's rank, they were accompanied by a large TIE fighter escort, which made a sound like a million monstrous bees before peeling away again as the shuttle landed. Vader knew they'd taken only a modest cruiser to get here. The Empire's military was stretched so thin that few ships remained for errands like this. Even Death Squadron - under Admiral Ozzel's command - was away in the Unknown Regions.

Daala wore her Grand Admiral's uniform and carried a couple of small bags. Tarkin still wore his Imperial circlet, but he'd changed out of the full robes and cape in favor of something slightly more casual: a brocade vest and something with flowing sleeves underneath, the sort of thing he might wear as Emperor to a social evening with moffs and ministers. Daala stood straight, but she radiated fear even more strongly than on their first meeting. She covertly looked around, her eyes wide as she took in the burning landscape. Tarkin, too, held a strange multilayered tension, which Vader could not immediately decipher.

Vader waited for them in the entrance hall, with Neap lounging nearby. "Emperor Tarkin," he said formally as the portcullis clunked shut behind them. Something about Daala's fear made him instinctively shift to fill the role expected, to behave as an authority. "Grand Admiral Daala. You are expected."

"My lord," said Daala, stiffly inclining her head. She remembered that Vader did not want her to kneel; that was good.

"Vader," said Tarkin, nodding a bit more easily. "I apologize for the vagueness in my last message. We have what I suspect will be useful information, but it's a bit delicate." He turned toward Neap, distracted. "Who's this?"

"This is Neap," said Vader. "Formerly known as Ninth Sister. Since the Inquisitors were disbanded, she has volunteered her services to the Exegol mission as a contractor."

"Charmed," Tarkin said flatly.

Vader was more attuned to the thoughts in Tarkin's head than to most people's, and he sensed Tarkin taking an immediate dislike to Neap. It wasn't just that she looked ugly, or that he'd wanted privacy to talk about sensitive things. There was a much more amusing current to it as well. Tarkin was surprised to see a stranger here out of uniform - and his mind had immediately leapt to the more personal reasons why Vader sometimes entertained such visitors.

Vader had less than zero sexual interest in Neap, and she had none in him. But Tarkin had been carrying on so openly with another woman all this time. If he worried that Vader was doing the same, if that made him feel jealous, then Vader was spitefully amused. Maybe he'd wait a while before he clarified this one.

"Do you wish her to be present to hear Grand Admiral Daala's information?" Tarkin asked in the most formal tones.

Neap took one quick look between Vader's mind, Tarkin's, and Daala's.

"Actually, I was just leaving," she said. "Gonna go up and grab some dinner."

"You are dismissed," said Vader, more amused than ever.

Tarkin gave her a long, appraising glance as she crowded her bulk into the turbolift and rose out of sight.

"Can she be trusted?" he asked, once an appreciable interval had passed.

"I have made sure of it," said Vader. "I have inspected her mind. She has nearly as many reasons to resent my former master as I do, and she wishes to ensure he is truly gone."

Oddly, this seemed to sharpen Tarkin's jealousy even more. "When were you going to tell me you had Inquisitor help?"

"I could not have done it sooner. She unexpectedly arrived this afternoon."

Tarkin had put a great deal of himself, this past week, into trying to track down Palpatine's ghost. He had believed he was the only person Vader would trust with that task, and it seemed some part of him took pride in being trusted that way. Not only as a grim necessity, but as a romantic gesture.

It _was_ a grim necessity, though, and they needed all the help they could get.

Vader watched as Tarkin shook those feelings off. Tarkin settled down on one of the couches, leaving Vader and Daala standing. "In any case, you'll want to hear what Grand Admiral Daala has to say."

Vader turned and paid full attention to Daala for the first time since she'd arrived.

Most people were afraid when they first saw Fortress Vader, but unless Vader actively menaced them, most became slightly less afraid once they made it indoors. For one thing, there was less lava indoors. Yet Daala's fear had only intensified. She stood with the air of a junior officer about to be dressed down for some mistake.

"Speak," Vader instructed.

Daala folded her hands in front of her, taking a breath. This felt like a speech she had rehearsed during the long flight from Coruscant. "I received the transcript of Janus Greejatus's interrogation this morning, my lord. It may be a coincidence, and working out how to navigate there will take additional time, but it happens that there is a place called Exegol very near the Maw Installation."

Vader was intrigued. If that was all she had to say, it would have been an excellent lead. But it clearly was _not_ all. "Explain."

"While I was working at the Maw Installation, Emperor Palpatine occasionally visited to inspect the work. Afterwards, he would fly further into the Maw Cluster. According to his ship's manifest, Exegol was the name of the destination. He told me he admired Emperor Tarkin's idea of a secret research base, and he had elected to start a project of his own further in, at coordinates only he knew. If he was planning to resurrect himself at a place called Exegol, then it's probably this one. I want to stress that he told me of no such plan; I was only told of the existence of a project, not what kind of project it might be. I allowed him to pass through the Maw Cluster as he wished, because, of course, he was the Emperor at the time."

She was defensive on this specific point. And Vader knew why. It all fell into place: her fear, Tarkin's unease, the insistence on hashing this all out in person.

Daala had known this all along. She had known that Palpatine was working on a secret project right in her backyard. She had been placed in charge of a galaxywide military campaign in which Palpatine's secret projects were the primary threat. Yet she'd neither mentioned nor pursued this, not until it was mostly revealed by someone else. She'd _protected_ it.

Tarkin had brought Daala to Vader because Daala, most likely, was a traitor like Tagge.

Vader burned with rage. It was the perfect place for Palpatine to put such a traitor, right in Tarkin's bedroom where his judgment was weakest. Vader had endured so much discomfort on Daala's account already. He would kill her if this was true. Let Tarkin try to stop him. Nothing could.

But he did not want to ascertain it immediately. He could break into her mind and find the truth right this second. But if it was what he thought it was, if he saw her betrayal play out viscerally in his mind as Tagge's had, he might lose control. He might kill her before extracting all the needed information, and that could prove ruinous for him and Tarkin both.

He would have to be careful, the way Tarkin was. The way his master had been. He would have to go against his nature and bank his rage until the correct time.

"Yet you looked at the manifests," Vader said. That seemed like the most pressing strategic question. "That would include the ship's passengers and cargo. If you are as clever as Tarkin claims, you must have your own guess as to what he was doing."

Daala nodded. Her mind felt shaky with fear, but she did a good job keeping her voice and posture steady. "I never reached a real conclusion, my lord, but it did appear to me that the resources fell into three broad categories. There were shipbuilding supplies, and there was a good deal related to weapons research, particularly towards the miniaturization of Death Star technology; he spoke personally to some of the Maw scientists who'd been involved in that project at its early stages. There was also biomedical material. Related particularly to cloning, I think; Kaminoan-derived techniques. Specialized small-scale incubators and genetic manipulation."

This was all true, as far as Vader could feel. Odd that Daala would be honest now, if she'd betrayed them before. Perhaps she'd merely sensed that she was in a very deep hole and should stop digging.

Tarkin frowned. "Then he was building a secret fleet equipped with unpleasant new weapons. And - growing his own crew?"

"Not a crew," said Vader, putting the pieces together. "One would not use small-scale incubators for that. Growing his own new body. _The true Emperor will return in the flesh._ "

A crease appeared in Daala's brow. "There's another thing I never understood, my lord. He brought expensive shipbuilding parts back and forth, enough to equip a large number of Star Destroyers with state-of-the-art Imperial hyperdrives, inertial dampeners, ion cannons and so on. But he bothered much less with the more basic kinds of part. Hull components, for instance, or the materials that would furnish crew quarters. With the cargo that I saw on the manifests, he could not actually have completed much of a fleet. Perhaps he died before he could finish either them or the clones."

Vader looked back at her, considering this. Maybe Palpatine _had_ died before completing his plans. That would be nice. But there was a worse possibility.

"Grand Admiral Daala," said Vader, "what do you know about the Dark Side of the Force?"

She frowned more deeply. "Does it have sides, my lord?"

"Nothing, then." He turned from her and began to pace. It was a shame that the entrance hall didn't have windows; he wanted to stare into his lava river, to soak up its ambient strength. "Nothing in nature is without its shadow, but some shadows are darker than others. The Dark Side of the Force, which I and my master wield, is strongest in the places most inhospitable to life. Fetid caverns; molten lakes. The frozen darkness between the stars. You are more acquainted with black holes than most, Grand Admiral. Imagine how they would look to one who senses the Force."

"I don't understand."

He didn't care if she understood. She was a traitor anyway. He was thinking this aloud for his own benefit, and for Tarkin's; Tarkin was the one who would need to follow his logic. "The Sith Empire congregated on the planets most suffused by the dark. The Jedi exterminated them and the worlds they had lived on were burned. But many planets, in that war's aftermath, were then forgotten. It is one of the great tasks of the Sith to find such worlds, to investigate what may have been left behind. Tell me, do you know what Exegol _is?_ A planet? A moon? An asteroid? A station?"

Daala's face had returned to its usual immobile poise, but Vader could feel her thinking frantically. "No, my lord. A location where projects occur, that's all."

Tarkin, as expected, looked up. "You think the Sith were already up to something there."

"You thought you were the first to think of hiding your classified projects in the Maw Cluster. But the Sith have existed much longer than you."

"That's how he knew the way," Daala murmured, catching on. "He wasn't following our lead; he was there first. We were in his way. And that means we don't know how long he was already working on his fleet before we got there."

"Perhaps a year or two," Vader agreed, stalking back toward her. "Perhaps thousands. You should have thought of that before you let him turn you to his side."

Daala looked up at him. "My lord, that is _not_ what I did."

She had expected this accusation; no doubt Tarkin had made a similar one. But he must have been unable to prove it himself, or he wouldn't have brought her here. Vader knew how to get to the bottom of such things.

"We will see," he said.

He extended a hand, and the Force constricted around Daala's body, immobilizing her, drawing her up onto her toes. At the same time, he pushed forward and broke the surface of her mind.

Daala's composure crumbled. She buckled to the meager extent that the Force-grip holding her allowed, grimacing with a groan of pain. Tarkin, at the same time, rose up in alarm from his seat.

"Vader," he snapped, in that tone he used when Vader was going too far. The tone one might use to bring a dangerous, overexcited animal to heel. "That's unnecessary. Ask questions like a civilized person. She'll tell you the truth."

His hypocrisy was so obvious that for a moment Vader contemplated killing him, too. Had it been _civilized_ when he spent thirty-six hours torturing Janus Greejatus, literally yesterday? Mortal enemies of the Empire were not owed civility, and that was what Daala was, if Vader was right. Tarkin had those suspicions too. He wouldn't have brought her here if he didn't.

Yet Tarkin _cared_ about Daala, and that put him in an impossible emotional position. He wanted to use Vader as an interrogation instrument, but not too much, not enough to really hurt her. That was why he'd accompanied her here and watched the interaction. Tarkin knew he could usually rein Vader in when Vader went too far. He wanted to precisely control Vader's settings as he did with those machines he'd used on Greejatus. But Vader was not a machine.

Vader reluctantly withdrew his senses from Daala's mind. Not fully, but back to the more respectful level he'd used with Neap, only a little more intense than simply looking at her intently. Non-Force-sensitive individuals often couldn't feel this level of probing at all. When they did, they could mistake it for a tension headache. He would not see her memories this way, but he would sense the truth.

"What is it that you did, then?" he asked, as she struggled to retain her composure. "How can you explain the way you hid this information?"

Daala took another deep breath and drew up what was obviously another prepared speech. "I was not informed of the urgency of your mission against Rax's faction, my lord, nor of the possibility that Emperor Palpatine in some sense still existed. With the information I had, I made a judgment that seemed reasonable to me: namely, that we faced worse threats closer to our borders. It would be unwise to waste resources on a dangerous attempt to find a path to a location that, by his own admission, only the late Emperor could reach. Now that I have seen the transcript of Greejatus's interrogation, I am better informed and can see that my judgment was in error-"

"That is a lie," Vader interrupted.

Peripherally, he could feel alarmed wheels turning in Tarkin's mind. Tarkin worried that Daala might have betrayed him, but he _had_ believed she'd tell the truth here, one way or another, if only because lying to Vader was so patently foolish.

Vader would have lorded the error over him, and then punished them both. Except that there was something _strange_ about this lie. Something that diverted him, partway, from mere rage into confusion. Daala was afraid of him, but a traitor like Tagge, blustering to avoid being found out, produced a specific _kind_ of fear. Daala's was different. It did not connect to the facts in the same way. It was a strangely inward fear, as if she didn't trust herself.

This was not merely a case of a traitor to be punished. This was a puzzle for Vader to solve. He could have done it more easily if Tarkin had not constrained his methods, but he could do it, either way.

"You had not yet arrived when we dealt with the last traitor in our ranks," Vader said. He stepped closer to Daala, towering over her. "Grand General Tagge told much the same story as you. He claimed that Rax's faction was not worth pursuing, that they were on some mystical fool's errand while we faced greater threats from more obvious sources. There were simple actions we could have taken to stop them, and he claimed that with everything else going on, these were impossible. In actuality, he was covering for them. You can understand why both Tarkin and I are suspicious."

"Yes, my lord," said Daala. Her face was rigid and expressionless. Her voice faltered only a little.

"I will ask again," said Vader, "and I expect the full truth this time. This is already more patience than I would show to most. Why did you wait to tell us about Exegol?"

"It slipped my mind," said Daala through her teeth. "There was a great deal else going on at the time. I was slightly overwhelmed. I take full responsibility for the error-"

This was closer to the truth, despite the terror that laced it. But it was still not the truth itself.

"That is also a lie," said Vader.

Tarkin rose from where he was sitting. His mind was as alarmed and confused as before, but with his posture he projected a calm strength. He walked up behind Daala and put a bolstering hand on her shoulder. She was shaking slightly. Tarkin leaned in as if to whisper in her ear, but his voice was pitched so that Vader would hear it clearly, too. "Remember what I told you about Vader and lies, my dear. Even white lies. He needs the truth blunt and unvarnished, no matter how it hurts."

Vader took hold of her face, mirroring a gesture he'd so often seen Tarkin make. "This is your last chance to answer under your own power, no matter how Emperor Tarkin tries to protect you. Why did you delay?"

Daala's green eyes were wide, and her voice came out in a whisper. "I don't know."

This, bizarrely, was the truth.

Vader withdrew his hand and stepped back. This was no less alarming than if she'd turned traitor on purpose, but it was much more intriguing. And the feel of it suggested certain explanations. Just as rage-inducing as what he had initially assumed, but much less to do with Daala herself. Vader had seen this kind of thing before.

"Did Palpatine tell you," he asked, "in so many words, that you should not pass on the information?"

Daala swallowed hard, regaining some of her voice. "Yes."

"And you obeyed that order because he was the Emperor."

"Yes, of course."

"Yet you do not know why you kept obeying, when he no longer had that authority."

"Yes."

He turned to Tarkin, though his mental focus remained on Daala's mind. "This is uncharacteristic for her, I take it. To make such a foolish choice without understanding why she chose it."

Tarkin looked disturbed. "Highly uncharacteristic, yes."

Vader looked back down and addressed Daala. "I will make a guess. Tell me if this is correct. You did not have to think about why you obeyed, because it was automatic to do so. It felt like forgetting, not because you truly forgot, but because there was no need to make a choice. It simply did not occur to you to act otherwise."

Daala blinked, and Vader could feel the tenor of her thoughts shift. A sort of relieved confusion, that Vader could state what she'd felt so clearly. "Yes, my lord."

"And when you returned to Coruscant, even though you no longer had reason to obey, it remained automatic. Until something jogged your memory so strongly that it could not be ignored."

She nodded. "Yes, my lord. That's what it was like."

"What was it like when you confessed your mistake to Tarkin? You tell each other many secrets, I am sure. Was it easy?"

"No, my lord." She frowned, breaking eye contact. "It was... difficult to say the words, but I don't know why."

He could feel the truth of that, too. The feeling of having pushed through some thick mental barrier. Not everyone was capable of breaking through that kind of mental restriction, even once they'd formed a desire to do so. Daala was not Force-sensitive, but in many ways she possessed a will as strong as Tarkin's.

Vader looked up at Tarkin. He was sure now. He was angry, but not at Daala anymore. He let go of her. She let out a shaky breath and stumbled slightly as control of her own limbs returned to her. "She did not betray us, Tarkin."

Tarkin had been staring at the two of them in mounting unease. "Are you saying Palpatine _controlled-_ "

"Yes." Vader turned and paced away. "Most likely a simple mind trick."

"But I thought that only works on-" Tarkin bit back his words and gave Daala a perplexed look, clearly unable to conceptualize her and the word _weak-minded_ in the same sentence.

"For the Jedi that was largely true. But they were overly straightforward; strength is not the simple binary attribute that they imagined. My master knew precisely the ways to find weakness in people who thought themselves strong."

Tarkin's face broke into a snarl. "And here I thought I'd already found enough reasons to hate him."

"My lords," Daala snapped. She had spent a moment regaining her balance and dusting herself off, and now she stood straight again, looking directly at Vader with a cold rage in her bright green eyes. "Is anyone going to explain what's just happened to _me?_ "

Tarkin's mind made a rueful movement, but he held his tongue. Vader turned to her, considering. She was so poorly educated about the Force that she hadn't even known it had sides. She would need it explained in small words.

"The reason why you withheld information from Tarkin," he said, "is because my master... enchanted you. He compelled your obedience by using the Force. You are not to blame."

He had thought she would be comforted: she had been afraid that Vader would punish her for treason, and now he'd declared that she'd done nothing wrong. But it only seemed to frighten her more. Daala's face remained perfectly composed, and her words came out cold and clipped. "You're saying I am... compromised, my lord?"

"Only in this one way, I suspect."

" _I suspect_ isn't good enough." She pivoted on her heel to face Tarkin, perfectly straight, unreadable as a mannequin. "I have authority over the entire Imperial military. If you can't trust my actions, I should be relieved of command."

She and Tarkin stared at each other a moment. Tarkin looked stricken, as if he wanted more than anything to argue, and couldn't quite find a coherent argument with which to do so.

Vader could not quite name the emotion he felt, looking at her. He knew what it felt like to realize the Dark Side had twisted one's mind; he had incurred that kind of damage far more deeply than she had. Her reaction was correct. He wondered, for a moment, what he would have thought about Admiral Daala if Tarkin had not made them rivals for his affection. If he had not had so many reasons, from the very beginning, to hate her.

He found himself crossing the room and placing his own heavy gloved hand on her shoulder, as Tarkin had. She did not flinch, but something in her mentally stilled, awaiting his judgment. "Will you allow additional questions, Grand Admiral?"

She took a breath, anticipating more pain, more immobility. "Yes."

"Did Emperor Palpatine ever, at any point, give you other instructions that might go against this administration's best interest?"

Daala thought hard. "No, my lord. I don't think so. Only that he should be allowed to pass through the Maw Cluster, and to occasionally make use of Maw resources, and that I need not mention it to anyone."

"What else did he say to you? To make you receptive." She tensed again at the question; she felt guilty that it had been possible to make her receptive at all. Vader had just explained how Palpatine could do this to anyone, in the right circumstance, but he didn't expect her to understand. "This is how he operated. Did he say things that you wished very much to believe? Did he describe any speculative, future plans? Did he offer you anything? Did he raise doubts in your mind about Tarkin or anyone else?"

She paused so long that Vader almost thought she'd be unable to answer. But she spoke at last in a low voice. "Yes, in a way." She faltered, embarrassed, and Vader's grip on her shoulder tightened. "He never offered anything concrete. He never... spoke badly of anyone. But he told me more than once that my own legacy, if I was patient and careful with the resources I possessed, could surpass Emperor Tarkin's."

Vader felt an odd, complicated movement in Tarkin's mind at that, but he ignored it. The two of them could sort out their relationship issues on their own time. "On what occasions did he say that?"

Daala looked down, wilting slightly, though her face was still difficult to read. She avoided Tarkin's gaze. "Only when he wanted those things from me that I already mentioned, my lord. I knew it was empty flattery. I only failed to realize the magical purpose it also served."

"And did you do anything, aside from skillfully carrying out the duties Tarkin assigned, to ensure you would surpass him?"

"No, my lord."

Vader stepped back, releasing his grip. He withdrew his senses from the close focus he'd kept on her mind. "You are not compromised. You were enchanted into this one omission, nothing more. If anything, you overcame the enchantment more easily than many would."

She whirled to face him. "You can't know that."

"You know nothing of the Force," Vader said, pointing at her. It verged on suicidal for her to argue with this. She knew how Vader treated those who failed him. She ought to have snatched at his explanations like a lifeline. "Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot know."

Daala opened her mouth to say something else foolish. Vader could feel the mental shape of it before it came out. An offer to resign, or to accept a demotion, or something equally foolish. She was panicking, and he had no patience for it. They were all three fighting an opponent cleverer than them, whose powers were unknown. They had no time to waste on doubting themselves.

Vader's own men in Death Squadron knew better than to behave like this. But among the Jedi Order, surely there had been trainees, young Padawans who struggled and self-recriminated when things went wrong. He did not remember how he'd dealt with that; he did not want to remember. Fall too deep into those memories and he'd end up panicking, too.

"Emperor Tarkin speaks highly of your facility with tactics," he said instead, interrupting her. "Is he correct?"

She paused. "I... yes, my lord."

"Good. I will go to the dining hall and inform Neap of what we have learned, and then the four of us will make a battle plan. You now have reason to hate my master as the rest of us do. We will find a way to Exegol to dispose of him for good. When I call for you, I will require your abilities, _and_ your special knowledge of his resources, unencumbered by pointless doubt. Do not disappoint me."

He turned, letting his cape billow behind him as he strode to the lift. He did not wait for an answer.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader, Tarkin, Daala, and Neap plan their mission to Exegol. Vader has maps. Daala has some serious concerns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All these novel-length fics end up... more or less adhering to the outline in terms of what happens. But SURPRISING THE HELL out of me in terms of the emotional arc that takes us there. So that's happening again and I ought not to be surprised anymore, really. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

As soon as Emperor Vader was gone, Daala crumpled down to the nearest couch and drew her knees up to her chest. She was shaking.

It was unseemly to do this. She wasn't technically in front of anyone but Tarkin just now, but anyone could walk in. She couldn't bring herself to care about that. If she needed to regain her composure, Tarkin would order her to. But until and unless he said otherwise, Daala needed a minute to fall apart.

Tarkin moved to her. His arms went around her, tight and impassioned, pressing her against him. She let her face fall into the crook of his neck and trembled.

"Hush," he said, in the same tender voice he used after a kink scene, when she needed help returning to reality. "Hush, my dear. It's over now. It's done."

She couldn't muster anything in response but a sob.

"I'm sorry I doubted you," he said.

He'd been distant and cold throughout their journey to Mustafar, focusing on his datapad. She now recognized that for what it was. He'd been afraid. He still hadn't been sure of the situation, and he'd known Vader, the mind-reader, could get to the bottom of it. But he hadn't wanted to think about what Vader might find when he did, or what that might mean for the three of them.

Tarkin had said, _I forgive you,_ but he'd only decided he lacked grounds to punish her himself. He'd still turned her over to Vader the way he'd threatened to do to Greejatus. Tarkin hadn't truly forgiven her until Vader did.

And Vader...

Vader had not only forgiven her, he'd _insisted_ on forgiving. More than that - he'd made a point of telling her that she'd handled the situation well. She knew enough about Vader to know that this was unlike him. He'd strangled people to death over much smaller failures than hers.

She couldn't work it out. _He has the social skills of a veermok,_ she remembered Tarkin saying, _but I think he likes you._

Daala remembered Vader's hand on her shoulder, the grip of steel under the heavy glove, very unlike flesh. Tarkin had held her that way, encouraging her confession, and Vader had precisely mirrored the gesture only a minute later. Was that what this was? Did Emperor Vader, two whole meters of durasteel and medical equipment and malice, want her the way Tarkin did?

She shivered.

All of this could easily have been much worse. Despite everyone's reassurances, Daala didn't see how they could prove there weren't more treasonous commands lurking somewhere in her head. Or anyone's head, really. She'd felt the blast of pain when Vader attempted to take the answers out by force, and she knew the whole interrogation could have felt like that if Tarkin hadn't corrected him. Daala _hated_ the Force, now more than ever. And it was Tarkin who'd turned her over to it.

For good reasons, she supposed. And he'd made sure he was present to prevent it from going too far.

She pulled back, wiping her eyes. "Sir, you are not. You'd do it again. It was necessary for the Empire's security."

"I've taught you too well, haven't I?" Tarkin gave her a rueful look, smoothing back a bit of hair that had escaped its braid. "Ascertaining the truth was a necessity, yes. I could have done it more gently. A favorite tactic of men like Palpatine is triangulating us all against each other. It seems I fell for that without being subject to any Force effect. If I'd thought more calmly about the sort of person you are, I would have known better."

With an effort, Daala straightened and resumed a more professional demeanor. She still felt shaky on the inside. She would be needed for tactical planning soon, but she wanted more of a respite before facing Vader again. But she wasn't sure just what to ask for. What came to mind was a shower, a snack, a tall glass of water, and a cuddle - as if all of this had been one long kink scene requiring aftercare. But that couldn't be right, and she was embarrassed to ask.

Tarkin looked her up and down, seeming to sense her hesitation. "Why don't we go up to the guest rooms? The sixth floor is outfitted for visitors, and everything there should be ready. One of the rooms is more or less permanently mine, and since Vader has his own quarters, it makes sense for you to stay with me. I suspect we won't have terribly long, but you deserve the chance to put away your luggage, at least, and to wash off from the journey."

"Yes, sir." She gratefully stood and picked up her bags from the floor where she'd left them. Tarkin shouldered his own small suitcase, and then he paused a moment, gazing at her.

"You might, you know," he said. "Surpass me."

"Sir," she said, bewildered. She had no idea how to respond to that. "You're an Emperor, sir."

"I am now, and I wasn't commanding a whole galaxy's military when I was twenty-eight. You have many more decades of life ahead. Fully realizing one's potential depends on a number of factors, many of which are inevitably up to chance. Or destiny, as Vader would say. But if I didn't think it was possible that you might one day be greater than me, I wouldn't have invested so many of my own resources to develop you." His tone was light, but he looked away from her, as if embarrassed by the depth of his feeling. "I assumed you'd already worked that out. I'm only sorry that you had to hear it first from a man who didn't mean it."

Daala looked at the floor. "Sir," she said, overwhelmed.

"I'm rambling." He put a steady hand on her back, guiding her forward. "Let's get you to the room."

*

"The first order of business," said Tarkin later, in the seventh-floor dining hall, "is to work out what is and isn't possible from here. We know Exegol's approximate location, and we have a guess what our enemy is doing there, but we don't know yet the precise route or how to make the approach. Is it reasonable to make a battle plan before we've gathered better navigational data?"

The four of them were assembled around a generous table, black wood set with brilliant red veins; a window on one side of the room gave a good view of Mustafar's lava fields. Vader sat at the head of the table, with Tarkin at his right hand. Daala was on the other side of Tarkin, which meant the whole opposite side of the table was taken up by Neap's horned bulk. Neap had eaten most of her dinner already, but she was happily snacking on a large slice of cake. Daala and Tarkin had been served, too, in proportions more appropriate for regular-sized humans: the seared meat of some odd invertebrate creature, set on a bed of vegetables and translucent sauce, with fresh buttered rolls and a dry red wine. Neither of them had touched much of the food yet.

Daala had changed, after her shower, into something other than her uniform, since no one else was wearing theirs either. That big, green, goddess-looking dress had not felt appropriate, but she'd put on her next-fanciest new outfit, a translucent jacket over an embroidered calf-length tunic. At Tarkin's suggestion, she'd done her hair a bit more loosely than before, leaving some of it down.

There was a proper meeting room just across the hall from here. But Vader had called them to the dining hall specifically, and Daala wondered what it meant. There were no dishes set out in front of Vader; she suspected he did not eat normal food. So he must have chosen the dining hall for the effect it would have on everyone else. Perhaps a concession to his guests' physical needs, or perhaps something more emotional. Perhaps a peculiar way of emphasizing that they were in this together.

Daala wasn't sure she liked it. Were the four of them a team of military commanders, meeting over dinner because it was the most efficient option? Were they a mismatched group of lovers and uneasy friends? Tarkin had always taught her to keep those modes of relating strict and separate. But everything was different now.

"What was the name of the ship my master used," Vader asked Daala, "when he visited you?"

"The _Imperialis_ , my lord. A personal corvette."

He turned to Tarkin. "Where is that now?"

"I don't know off the top of my head. A personal corvette wouldn't be much use in our military campaigns, so it's likely in the Imperial hangar on Coruscant."

Daala took a couple of cautious bites of food as they talked. The meat was delicate and pleasing. She hadn't yet regained the knack of telling what sort of food was _good_ food - as opposed to the merely passable. After three years of synthetic rations, all fresh foods felt like miracles. She'd have gobbled it all with embarrassing speed if her nerves weren't still making her queasy.

"Find it and have its navigational memory read," said Vader. "It will likely already have been wiped, but it is better to be thorough. And if he did wipe his ship's memory, the coordinates must be recorded somewhere else. This kind of navigational data is too complex to be memorized. It would have been kept encrypted, in a form he believed only he could access."

Tarkin nodded. "So we keep searching his personal effects, is that what you're suggesting? We can change the analysts' top priority from the metaphysics of life and death to maps and navigation."

"I have a suspicion," said Vader. "There are many Sith artifacts here, both in my fortress and on the surrounding Imperial property. There are also the artifacts from the Imperial Palace that you shipped to me. Some contain maps, but without context. I will look through those things myself as soon as we are done here."

Daala was diverted by the mention of Sith. "My lords, if I could interject?"

"Yes?" said Vader, turning his attention to her immediately.

"I'm not very well informed about this... Sith thing, nor any of the other personal or magical aspects of this campaign. I understand Emperor Tarkin kept these things private out of respect for your wishes, my lord. But if I'm to help you plan, I'd like to ask for some explanations."

Vader paused. "I forgot that I had asked him not to tell you. Very well. Ask."

"What are the Sith? What is the Dark Side? What do black holes have to do with it? Who is Darth Plageuis? What sort of powers over life and death and people's minds did Emperor Palpatine have, and how will that affect the tactical situation on Exegol? If the prevailing theory is that he's cloning a new body which will somehow possess his consciousness, and if none of us knew of that plan until Greejatus confessed it, then why did Tarkin in the interrogation transcript expect to hear about a ghost?"

Vader sounded amused. "That is a great number of questions."

Daala skewered a couple of vegetables with her fork. "Then it's a good thing we're all sitting comfortably, my lord."

What followed was a long and rambling, but _very_ illuminating, monologue by Vader, with asides by Neap and the occasional clarifying interjection from Tarkin. Daala listened attentively. The history of the Sith and the Dark Side was even longer and stranger than she'd supposed. She had heard Tarkin's little stories about working with Vader and with the old Jedi Order, but she hadn't realized until now just how much he'd omitted from those stories.

It bewildered her that there was a whole school of thought about the Force which revolved around unrestrained expressions of anger and hate. She could understand anger as a power source, but not without self-control to ensure that it was channeled in the right direction. That kind of self-control was one of the first, deepest lessons Tarkin had taught her. Did Vader lack it? Tarkin had said that he didn't play dominant with Vader, but she'd seen him reining in Vader's temper, both today and at their first meeting. Did Vader realize that was what he was doing?

But if she kept thinking about how Vader and Tarkin's relationship worked, she would lose focus on the lesson; so she stopped.

By the time everyone was finished bringing her up to speed about the Force, they were most of the way through dinner. Daala only had a few scraps of vegetables and half a roll left, and she'd drunk some of her wine. Tarkin had eaten almost as much, if only because Daala had quietly prodded him a few times. Neap had finished her cake long ago, but the servants had kept her drinks topped up, and she was now lounging comfortably in her chair.

"That covers everything, I think," she said at last, "except the ghost."

The three others at the table exchanged a look that she couldn't decipher. After a brief silence, it was Tarkin who spoke up. "Emperor Vader has had recurring dream-visions ever since Palpatine's death, long before he knew anything about Rax's faction, which involve Palpatine's ghost attempting to take over his body. Force visions of that type are usually real, though they can be stripped of context in ways that potentially-"

"The ghost is real," Vader interrupted, in an odd mulish tone. "Neap saw it."

"I saw something," Neap clarified. "Could be a ghost. Don't know what ghosts are supposed to look like."

"Wouldn't they..." Daala trailed off, confused. She had seen cartoon ghosts in vids before. They looked like pale translucent people, or abstract shapes with faces, which floated around being spooky. She wasn't sure where the ambiguity would lie.

"Until this whole thing happened," said Neap, "none of us believed in ghosts."

"But you're Force-sensitive."

"Yeah, and we spend a lot of time killing people. You know what happens to a person's mind when you kill them? It goes away." She made a violent gesture with one meaty hand. "Poof. Think of kicking over a sandcastle, stomping it real good, until you can't tell the place where it was from the rest of the beach. Technically all the sand is still there, but the castle's gone. If Palpatine's a ghost now, he must have had some secret technique that the rest of us didn't know. Some way to keep his mind in the right shape without a body.."

Tarkin was still looking at Neap. "You saw the ghost. Could you discern anything useful?"

She shrugged. "I just got here today. All I know is there's something weird clinging real close to Lord Vader there. Immaterial. Dark Side. Doesn't feel the way I remember Emperor Palpatine feeling, but doesn't feel all _that_ different, either. Feels like it can't decide if it's inside Emperor Vader or outside him. That's all I know."

Goosebumps pricked at Daala's arms under her jacket. "You're saying that not only is there a ghost, but it is _here._ At this moment. On Emperor Vader's person."

"It is... inactive," said Vader. "The battles only occur when I am asleep."

"But you don't see it when you're awake, do you, my lord? It's not visible to you at this time, but Neap can see it, and she doesn't know whether it's aware of what we're saying now or not. With all due respect, my lord, do you think it's wise for us to plan how to destroy a ghost while the ghost is literally in the room with us?"

Tarkin frowned. "I'm not sure there's much of a way around that, unfortunately. Depending on this entity's precise perceptive abilities-"

"She is right." Vader pushed his chair back from the table. "We do not know when or how he can see us, but it would pay to be cautious. I will go look through those artifacts I mentioned. The answers to any other relevant questions about the Force will be known by Emperor Tarkin or by Neap. Make the plans you care to make. I will return."

He strode out of the room without checking to see if anyone, including Tarkin, disagreed. All three of the others looked at the door, as it closed behind him, in mild concern.

Daala took a breath, recentering herself. It was possible that there was an actual, invisible ghost hanging on to Emperor Vader right now, and that the ghost was, in fact, Emperor Palpatine's. There were ways that this almost made sense. Palpatine had planned to return in the flesh at the appointed time. Vader's flesh could be the one he meant, or it could be a stepping stone towards that goal.

But if she looked at all the evidence dispassionately, most of it pointed to something quite different.

"Have either of you considered the possibility," she said, looking into the middle distance expressionlessly, "that Emperor Vader may... ah..."

Neap looked at her. "No, spit it out. Clear the air."

"That he may be having some kind of psychotic break." She counted on her fingers as she went through the lines of evidence. "He's never been mentally stable, not in any of the stories you've told me. He has some Force effect around him, but it only partway resembles a ghost. The belief system you share - bolstered, I'm sure, by what thousands of Force-sensitives have and haven't sensed over the years - doesn't include ghosts nor any other immaterial afterlife. The prisoners we've interrogated who are aware of Palpatine's other plans, even as far as bodily resurrection, didn't know anything about a ghost. You yourself said that what you saw could be coming from inside him. What if there is no ghost? Whatever strange Force thing is happening to Emperor Vader could be... I don't know what, but I'm sure there are any number of possibilities. He was abused by Palpatine for years and he viscerally experienced Palpatine's death. Maybe his mind now insists on seeing Palpatine when Palpatine is simply not there."

There had been people at the Maw - not the scientists, usually, but workers lower down in the hierarchy, people who'd been trapped there for many years longer than Daala with little change of scenery. Just the trek from a sleeping cell to a work floor and back again, doing the same menial routine, until the days blurred together completely. Such people did occasionally lose their minds. It was often not dramatic on the surface. They still did their work when pressed to. They could carry on a conversation. Until halfway through the conversation when they would matter-of-factly insist that there was a green paisley pattern on the bare gray wall before them, or that the black holes told them secrets in their sleep.

Tarkin set his fork down with a decisive click. "I will not entertain this line of thought. We've discussed Vader's fitness to rule already."

"Yes, sir, but that was before he had that medical emergency you wouldn't tell me about. And before you both started to get really strange about chasing down Rax-"

Something seemed to catch Neap's attention. "Wait, what medical emergency? When was this?"

"This is none of either of your business," Tarkin said through grit teeth.

Neap looked at him as if the thing he'd just said was an actual explanation. "Ooh. That's... wow. That's worse than I thought."

The look Tarkin gave her in response was positively incandescent with rage.

Daala squared her shoulders. "I would appreciate if half the inhabitants of this fortress would stop rifling at will through the other half's minds."

"Sorry," said Neap blithely, with no regret in her tone at all. "He was thinking it loud."

"I was thinking no such thing-" Tarkin protested, before seeming to realize how futile those words were and biting them off.

"Look," said Neap, "I'm not good with elephants in the room. We're all trying to be honest with each other here. You should tell her."

"Tell me _what?_ " said Daala, utterly lost.

Tarkin took a single, stubborn breath, and then he picked up his fork and stabbed it directly into the center of the last remaining invertebrate on his plate.

"He was suicidal," Tarkin bit out. "That was why I had to drop everything and visit him. He believed that, if he didn't die, the ghost would take over his body and that would be worse." He made a sharp gesture with the speared invertebrate in Daala's direction. "And he had told no one before I convinced him to tell me, not even his medical droid. Because he was convinced I would react the way _you_ just did, and he would not be believed. He was convinced it was useless to even try asking for help. He would rather have died."

The dining hall fell silent for several long seconds.

"My, uh, lord," said Neap at last, and Tarkin gave her a sharp look. "Let me tell you something about the Dark Side."

He narrowed his eyes. "If you wish."

"When you've given yourself to the Dark Side, all that fear and hate, it eats a hole in you. You can't turn it off. You have to pick a target to lash out at, or you'll turn it in on yourself instead. I think half the crap Sith masters and apprentices do to each other is just for the sake of having a target between missions. Why do you think Dark Siders hold grudges so long? Why do you think I signed up for this so quickly? Even diving headfirst into one of Lord Sidious's traps is safer than sitting around without something to fight. I'm a practical gal that way. Lord Vader's _not_. He does things the hard way for the sake of proving to everybody that he can. If he wanted to die, it's not because of the ghost. It's because he was trying to do this all by himself, and in our line of work, that's lethal. I knew he was taking that risk as soon as he told us he didn't want an apprentice. I just thought it'd take longer to kick in."

Tarkin stared out the window, past Neap's mountainous shoulder, at the lava fields. "But that's what I've been trying to fix. He's _not_ alone. He has the whole Empire to bolster him and a slew of enemies to choose from as well."

"Sure. You're doing the right things, as far as I can tell. But what I'm saying is, this isn't something you can fix by sending fleets at Rax's faction. When we've stomped Lord Sidious' ghost back into the ground where it belongs, the real problem will still be there. You can't fix that one, not with all the Empire's military. You didn't put the Dark Side in Darth Vader. And you can't take it out again."

"You're both missing the part," said Tarkin impatiently, "where we _need_ to deal with Rax's faction, which assuredly does plan on resurrecting Palpatine, and which is a demonstrable threat to the Empire. Regardless of Vader's mental health, all his intuitions about that faction have alerted us to genuine ongoing plots. I don't see why everyone's so reluctant to listen to him."

"Right. So that brings me back to _your_ question, Grand Admiral," said Neap. "Boil it down and we've got two options. Either the ghost is real or it's not. Right?"

"Right," said Daala, though inwardly she was still reeling. No wonder Tarkin hadn't wanted to tell her the nature of the emergency. No wonder he'd strained the Empire's resources trying to make it better. Tarkin was _not_ the rational one, not always. He had always espoused the policy of doing anything necessary to achieve one's goals, no matter how ruthless or painful or terrible.

He had committed himself to treason, not only to give power to Vader, but to save him. Yet Vader, from the sound of it, was not saved. And, once Tarkin had chosen an objective, he did not know how to back down. He would continue trying to do whatever he thought Vader needed. And continue. And continue.

This was not a recipe for a functional co-Emperorship.

"Let's say the ghost is real," said Neap. "In that case, it's pretty clear what we should do. We believe what Vader says, we go and fight it, we win, and then without the ghost, it's that much easier to clean up everything else. Problem solved. So, option two: let's say the ghost is _not_ real. In that case, _something_ is still visibly fucked up about Lord Vader in the Force. Rax's faction still thinks they can resurrect Palpatine on Exegol through whatever non-ghost method. So we still gotta deal with that. In the process of dealing with that, we see more about what they're really doing and more about how it's different from a ghost. With any luck, we figure out more about what's really happening to Lord Vader. With good luck, maybe he even figures it out for himself. Either helps." Neap took a swig of her wine. "But until we've gone to Exegol ourselves - until and unless we've made _damn sure_ that the ghost isn't real - both those plans are the same. We need to go there. We need to finish fucking up Palpatine's shit. Lord Vader needs to face his demons. And he needs to know the people who matter are on his side." She set down the glass with a flourish and smacked her lips. "Questions?"

And even Daala had to admit that this was now clear to her.

*

When they were finished eating, they moved to the meeting room, and they drew up speculative battle plans on the holo-table. Tarkin and Daala were both quick with this sort of work. Neap contributed less, but between her own battle experience and her talent for grasping what was in people's minds, she kept up. Sometimes she had useful advice about the Force.

There honestly wasn't much to go through. They didn't know what they would find on Exegol - a planet, a moon, or a station; a useless half-finished fleet or an unfathomably gigantic one; no Force-using combatants or an ancient forgotten host of them. They didn't know if Palpatine would be there, or if the machineries for resurrecting Palpatine would be there, or if all of that was still far in the future. Due to the constant interference throughout the Maw Cluster, it would be very difficult to send a discreet scouting party in advance. They would have to show up, once they found the route, and quickly adapt to whatever they stumbled upon.

That meant the main tasks were twofold: sketch out the range of possible scenarios in very broad strokes, then ensure they brought the corresponding range of tools. When it came to any confrontation with Palpatine's followers on the ground, Vader would be their greatest asset, with Neap to assist. Daala would have command of the ships in the air, which meant any large-scale engagements were her job, and so was the scouting and scanning that might become possible once they arrived.

They were more or less finished when Vader burst back into the room, carrying a small armful of strange polyhedral objects.

"Grand Admiral Daala," he said in curt greeting. "You will tell me which of these you recognize."

Daala looked at Vader's dark mask, and then down at the objects. There were about a half dozen of them. They ranged in size and style, the smallest about the size of her own closed fist, the largest a little bigger than her head. All of them had an eerie look, despite their abstract shapes. She'd never seen any of them before. "None, my lord."

"They are devices that hold information," Vader said. He sounded amused. "Let me bring the information up for display."

He opened the holo-table and fished in its connections panel. After a moment he brought out a couple of non-standard-looking connectors and attached them to the first of the devices. A map sprang up in hologram form in front of them, but it was very stylized and unlike any map Daala had ever seen. Nothing was labeled, but there were shapes that she took to be stars, planets, and nebulae in a complex three-dimensional arrangement, and lines between them that might have been routes or something else. Three of the planets were highlighted in bright red.

"You remember the Maw Cluster's layout in general terms," said Vader. "Does anything on this map resemble the Maw Cluster to you?"

Daala focused on the map, picturing it rotated to various angles in her head, imagining different possible interpretations of those lines and highlights. "No, my lord."

Vader swapped it out for the second. This one was a cube with something red and burning faintly visible inside. A map sprang out of it which was stylized in a different way, a distorted spiral whose different parts seemed to shift, like an optical illusion, as one moved around it.

Daala walked in a circle around the holo-table, just to be sure. She ducked down and raised herself on tiptoes, in case the vertical axis mattered. What were those shifts meant to represent? Cycles in time? Changes in some sort of eldritch background radiation? However she moved and however she tried to interpret it, nothing in it looked familiar. "No, not that one either."

But at the third one, she caught her breath. This object was a greenish, translucent pyramid, and the map it displayed was achingly familiar.

"That's it," she said immediately. She leaned closer and pointed to features. "These dots look at first glance like planets or stars, but it's actually the precise spatial arrangement of singularities that make up the Maw Cluster. You can see the gravitational contour markings around them. This is the inner edge where the space kept clear by the black holes meets the intact parts of the Akkadese dust cloud. And if you look for a dot out here-" She found it after a moment, not a dot but a tiny letter in some ancient alphabet, connected by spidersilk-fine hologram threads to various locations further in. "That's Kessel. This is where the route to the Maw Installation starts. These threadlike lines, the ones you can barely see, some of them correspond to the safe paths we're aware of, but there are more of them than that - whoever built this device must have mapped the area more thoroughly than we did. Here's where we built the Maw Installation, right at the gravitationally stable point in the center of the cluster. But some of the lines extend further than that-"

"There," said Vader, jabbing a gloved fingertip at a particular point in the hologram. He'd spied it half a second before she did, a second letter in that same old alphabet, in a space nestled more closely than the Maw Installation between several black holes, so close that even the safe path ducked right between the glowing tails of two accretion disks.

Daala let out a short breath. "Yes. Can you navigate there?"

"If I connected this to a navicomputer, yes." Vader switched the display off and gathered the artifacts back to him. "It is settled, then. I will call Death Squadron back from the Unknown Regions to this planet. They will be here by morning. We will leave then. Be ready."

Tarkin, who was watching the holotable with the back of his hand pressed to his mouth, gave him a sidelong look. "How's your health, Vader? Are you cleared for a mission that soon?"

"The longer we wait," said Neap, "the more time this ghost has to prepare for us."

"I am going," Vader said. He did not make eye contact with any of them. " _We_ are going. We will pick up the pieces afterwards. I cannot shirk this call forever."

Tarkin inclined his head, acknowledging the point, but he didn't look happy. "I can't go with you, of course. I'll need to head back to Coruscant and keep the rest of the Empire functioning. I trust the two of you to succeed." He paused briefly, just long enough to be slightly insulting, before adding, "And Neap, by extension. If you trust her."

"I heard that," said Neap.

"But you will stay the night," Vader said, turning to Tarkin possessively. It wasn't a question.

Daala felt a slight flush rising to her face. It wasn't just the knowledge that Tarkin was with someone else; it was the way his whole demeanor subtly changed. He was always so dominant and possessive with her, and she'd seen him take what looked like dominant turns with Vader: sternly stopping him when he went too far. But _this_ was Vader taking his turn at control, and it was strange and fascinating to watch how easily Tarkin accepted that control, how he moved to mirror Vader's will.

"Yes," he said.

She had never really understood this kind of switching. How did they decide who got to be in charge when? What was the protocol?

"I will have need of you in my quarters within the hour," Vader said to Tarkin, apparently unfazed by saying such things in front of a whole room of people. He turned to the two women. "Grand Admiral, I will see you tomorrow morning as we embark. Neap, I have additional orders for you. Come with me."

Neap turned to Tarkin and Daala. "Night, you two." The two of them nodded back, and she followed Vader out of the room with her lumbering gait, leaving them alone.

Tarkin was the first to move, crossing the room to wrap his arms around Daala more gently before.

"I have other work I should catch up on," he said absently, stroking her hair. "And I should wash up further before I see Vader; Emfour's particular about these things. Will you be all right without me?"

He could not seem to get enough of her hair, and the feeling of being admired for a feature like that was pleasant. But she wondered if it had ever occurred to him why she'd grown it out. Her hair marked the length of time she'd been without him, at the Maw. The small resentments of that place, the ache of being abandoned, were made measurable in centimeters that way, flame-red, undeniable. Even if it was still hard to remember them, in the face of Tarkin's real presence, his voice, his touch.

There were so many things it was hard to remember when a powerful man didn't want you to.

"I'll manage, sir," she said. Today had been heavy, but it had turned out all right. She wanted to curl against Tarkin and be comforted longer, but really the amount of comfort that she wanted would take all night, far past the point at which Vader would come looking for them. Tarkin was normally conscientious about things like aftercare, but there were times when some emergency came up. She knew how to administer comfort to herself. She took responsibility for her needs.

He kissed her forehead. "I can't actually sleep in Vader's quarters, so I'll be back in our room eventually, but likely very late, and I'll be tired when I do. Don't strain yourself waiting up for me. The servants will get you anything you need in the meantime."

"Understood, sir."

She tilted up her face and he kissed her goodnight properly, long and slow.

"You did extremely well today," he said. "I shouldn't have doubted you."

"Thank you, sir," she replied. Then he turned and strode out of the room, a distracted air on his face as he moved already to thoughts of his other work, the dozens of political and military projects that had spent the day developing without them. And she was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> daala: "emperor vader!! you are mentally ill and your relationship with my boyfriend is codependent!! it is harming the EMPIRE please DESIST"  
> vader: "oh YEAH? well YOUR relationship with MY boyfriend is based on him taking sexual advantage of you & controlling your life ever since you were 18"  
> daala: ...  
> vader: ...  
> neap: *quietly exiting the room again*
> 
> (why am i like this, i don't know)


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader takes M4's advice and tries to open up to Tarkin a bit more about his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like "content warning: sheev" is a bit excessive for a chapter in which Sheev doesn't even appear, but we _are_ gonna be talking a little about tiny!Jake Lloyd!Anakin's early history with Palpatine.

Everyone on Coruscant was cranky, as they always would be when the schedule was disrupted, but nothing on Coruscant was actually burning down and there had been no major military engagements. Much of what Tarkin needed to do today, he'd done on the flight here, and now that he had access to the nets again, most of it only needed to be checked against the more recent messages and sent to the appropriate parties. Tarkin dealt with that quickly, then thoroughly showered and changed into his bathrobe, then went looking for Vader.

He didn't feel guilty leaving Natasi behind in the guest room. She'd had a hard day, but she'd also had him every night this past week, often quite elaborately. Time alone with Vader was much harder to arrange.

And time alone with Vader like this, in the heart of the fortress where Vader could take his suit off, was the most precious time of all.

When Tarkin entered the thick warm darkness of Vader's quarters, M4-R3K had nearly finished helping Vader remove the suit. Vader looked so different without it. The skin of his whole body, like his face, was pale and scarred and uneven with old burns. Even naked, he was riddled with tubes and wires and openings, intrusions where at some point he'd been cut into so that one organ or another could be kept functioning through inorganic means. Despite its strangeness, this was a sight Tarkin had grown to adore. He loved the musculature of Vader's body, how strong and active he looked even when flat on his back, barely breathing. He loved the vulnerability of it, a level of intimate access Vader had never offered to any other lover.

This would be only the second time they'd made love in this way, skin to skin. The first time had been over a month ago, shortly before the Death Star, and it had ended with Vader proposing regicide. After that, everything had happened so quickly; there hadn't been time.

"Hello, Vader," Tarkin said, speaking clearly into the room. Vader's vision and hearing weren't very good without the mask.

"I was beginning to think," said Vader, "that you would make me wait."

Tarkin noted that M4 had removed one of Vader's prosthetic arms and was working at the second. Last time, Vader had kept his limbs attached, the better to clutch at Tarkin while they moved together, but he'd taken them off sometimes for exposure therapy, so Tarkin was familiar with the sight. "Hello, Emfour."

"Hey, Emperor Tarkin," said M4. She didn't sound angry or afraid as she had when they last met.

"I take it you've been told of our plans for tomorrow."

"Yep. You bet I have."

The second arm came off, and Vader looked shyly in Tarkin's vague direction. "I asked to be without my limbs tonight. These ones are still new."

"Of course," said Tarkin. Vader's limbs were designed to attach securely to the flesh underneath them, without too much friction or strain, but Tarkin could still see a faint rawness at the end of both stumps, to which M4 briskly applied a bacta salve before moving on to the legs.

A glint of lighter color, in the black pile that had been made of the suit, caught Tarkin's eye, and he took a step closer, surprised and pleased. "You've been wearing the armband again."

"Yes," said Vader, and a very complex mix of emotions flickered across his face, but affection was the predominant theme, so that was all right.

Tarkin approached the table, finding a spot to lean in casually without getting into the droid's way. "I know this was your first day out of the tank, Vader. I'm sorry if I caused anyone to push anything. I can't _exactly_ argue with the mission logic, but you know I want you to be well."

"I will never be well," said Vader. "But I felt good today, by my standards."

"He'll survive," M4 agreed. "He's had more time to rest than Lord Sidious would have given him. Also, I don't like that guy either. We'll have some more recovery work to do after the mission, but it makes sense you gotta make sure he's dead." She looked up at Tarkin. "You both really thought I was going to lord it over everyone and forbid him from going, didn't you? That's the real problem with both of you. You're way too used to lords."

Tarkin let himself smile, watching her work. "Then I suppose we're on the same page."

"There we go, all done," said M4 when she'd undone and salved both legs. "'Night, Emperor Tarkin. See you in a bit, Lord Vader. Have fun."

"Goodnight, Emfour," said Tarkin. He watched as she beat a hasty exit. Setting things up for this type of intimacy required M4's assistance. She did her work cheerfully enough, but the actual sex part embarrassed her. Which was just as well, since Tarkin had no wish to perform for an audience.

"Attend me," Vader commanded when the door shut behind her, and Tarkin climbed half-up on the table. These encounters without the armor were special, very different from the Force sex they were used to. At times like these, they didn't play much with pain or cruel words or immobility; Vader's physical state required gentleness. But for that very reason, Tarkin also took orders more gracefully here. Vader was so vulnerable; he needed to be the one to choose what would be done, in what order, and how quickly.

Last time he'd seen Vader's face, it had been contorted into a grimace of such awful despair. Tarkin hadn't dared anything more than a forehead kiss, last visit. But this time, that expressive face held nothing but desire. It was soothing to feel that fragile uneven skin against Tarkin's cheek again, under his fingertips.

"It is good to have you here again," Vader murmured.

"Yes," Tarkin agreed.

He felt the first gentle inroads of Force-sensation moving across his face. Vader shared senses with Tarkin as a prerequisite for every kind of sex, suited or not, and the beginning of that process carried a specific physical feeling. Tarkin smiled against it and moved in to properly kiss Vader's mouth.

All through the Death Star disaster, all through their perilous plans to seize the throne, all through the terrible fortnight as he waited for Vader to wake up again, Tarkin had worried that he might never have this again.

A peculiar, poignant smile twisted his mouth as he came up for air.

"What?" said Vader.

"I was just thinking," said Tarkin, "that I'd never kissed an Emperor before."

*

Vader was so alive. Nothing could convince Tarkin otherwise, not while he watched Vader begin to come apart so easily under the gentlest touch of fingertips to ravaged skin. Not while Vader's fragile breath sped and caught, so different from the steady rhythm of the respirator. Not while Tarkin felt those strong muscles rippling and contracting beneath him.

And best of all was Vader's face. Vader could not suppress the expressions of his face, and when Tarkin met his eyes he could see his every movement reflected there. Every way he touched Vader, the pleasure and pain of it - there would always be pain, no matter how gentle he was; that was simply the reality of Vader's body. But also every way Vader touched _him,_ because that was how the sense-sharing worked. He felt those things and saw them simultaneously, reflected in Vader's ecstatic face, blending seamlessly with the things Vader felt on his own. Tarkin was not Force-sensitive in the least, but he was good at reading faces, and this was the closest he'd ever come to feeling what Vader felt. To believing, on a visceral level, that the two of them had become one.

It was exactly as good as the first time. Afterwards, Tarkin carefully cleaned Vader's body and applied more bacta salve to the parts that had undergone sustained friction. Then he cuddled in at Vader's side, savoring the skin contact just a little longer. They'd practiced this, kissing and holding each other without the suit on, much longer than they'd practiced the sex part. Vader lay flat on his back, as he had since the beginning, and Tarkin's head rested on the stump of Vader's shoulder, one arm wrapped lightly around his broad chest.

"I missed this," said Tarkin sleepily, and he trusted Vader to pick up the nuances under the words, the dangers and stresses that had kept them apart. It would be good when Vader had quarters like this in the Imperial Palace, he thought, even if he didn't stay in them most of the time. It would be good for them to be _together_ more.

"Yes," said Vader.

Tarkin gave him a careful look. He was still in the comfortable part of the afterglow, but its first and most rapturous notes were fading, and a cruel, unfair question had occurred to him: did Vader like this _enough?_ When it came to the next crisis, would Vader want to live, so as to keep having nights like this?

The answer was almost certainly _no._

Vader's ghost was real. Tarkin had already invested too much in the war against it to consider any other option. But Daala had been correct, back on Coruscant, when she complained that it was draining the Empire's resources. Tarkin had hyperfixated on it, desperate for something concrete that could serve as an enemy. That was ironic, perhaps - Neap had said that Vader needed a target, but it was Tarkin, at least as much as Vader, who'd needed so badly to put something in his crosshairs. Tarkin wanted to slay this ghost, destroy it with his legion of spaceships, and make Vader well again.

But, as Neap had also pointed out, that wasn't how it worked. The ghost _needed_ to be slain, and they would slay it. But afterwards, Vader's other problems would remain. Some part of him would still want to die. Some part of him would feel, if Tarkin understood correctly, that it was already dead.

This was not a problem that could be solved in battle. This would require other methods, outside Tarkin's range of expertise.

"I was wondering," Tarkin said carefully. "Have you and Emfour resolved your differences?"

"Yes," said Vader.

"So you've been talking to her? About how you're feeling?"

"No."

Tarkin frowned.

"We are no longer angry with each other," Vader explained. "But there are things a medical droid cannot understand. One of those things is the Force."

Tarkin looked at Vader carefully. "You're still afraid she'll... misdiagnose you? Is that it? Because mental health problems involving the Dark Side of the Force aren't in her programming."

The Sith, to hear Neap tell it, were all very ill with a specific kind of mental disorder of their own making. They did not believe in psychiatric treatment, and thus they had never created any. Ordinary people would never encounter this particular problem, so they had never created any treatment for it, either. And if the Jedi or some other group had designed such a thing, it would be news to Tarkin.

What _did_ the Jedi do if one of their number flirted briefly with the Dark Side? Were there protocols, detox programs, established ways to help such a person return to the fold? If they'd existed once, they were likely gone, and likely they'd been as sanctimonious and ineffective as everything else the Jedi did. Vader believed his Jedi self to be dead; he would have no interest in such things.

Tarkin could imagine one other option. If there was no known treatment program for this, then perhaps a medical droid like M4, superlatively experienced with a Dark Side user's needs, could work together with sensitives like Neap and _create_ one. But that would take time, and immense trust on Vader's part, and at the moment both currencies seemed lacking.

"Something like that," Vader said. He abruptly looked shy. "But we talked, she and I. She said that if I do not want therapy, she will not make me have it. She said that, as the next best option, it would be good for me to simply..." He hesitated even more. Whatever this idea of M4's was, it clearly humiliated Vader even to entertain the idea. "Speak to someone. Someone I trusted. About... feelings. And. Things."

Tarkin moved his hand, stroking Vader's skin as though he were a pet animal to be sooothed. "I want that. I want you to be able to trust me with those things. I've wanted it for a long time, but obviously Palpatine didn't want you sharing very much about he'd hurt you, and you didn't seem to want that either..." He trailed off, reconsidering what Vader had said. _No droid can understand the Force_. But Tarkin didn't truly understand that, either. He knew only what Vader had told him over the years. "Or... would you prefer if it was Neap?"

An expression of unapologetic mirth crossed Vader's face. It would have been a laugh aloud, a hearty laugh at Tarkin's expense, if Vader's lungs had been strong enough to sustain such things. As it was, he merely grinned, his lips and chin twitching soundlessly.

Tarkin belatedly, and with intense embarrassment, realized what had really been happening here. He'd had no cause for jealousy, but Vader had noticed him feeling it, and had spitefully allowed it to go on.

"It is not like that," said Vader. "We are not... together. I have no interest. But it was very funny watching you think we were."

Tarkin rolled his eyes all the way to the ceiling. "Yes. Very funny."

"We are meant to support each other, are we not?" Vader asked sweetly. "Regardless of any jealousy. Our bond as co-Emperors is stronger than any such thing-"

"Yes, Vader. You've made your point." Tarkin turned onto his back and covered his face with his hands. He waited until Vader had calmed down and stopped his attempt at laughter.

"Neap knows more about the Force than you," Vader said at last. "She might be... helpful. For certain questions. When we are done here and you have gone to your guest room, she will spend a portion of the night sitting outside this chamber and watching with her Force senses. We will see if anything becomes more... visible when I am dreaming. If anything can be deduced from it that is of use to us."

The stump of his arm twitched slightly under Tarkin's head, and a moment later Tarkin felt a strange sensation. Like one of Vader's gloves on his face, except that Tarkin's hands were already on his face, and Vader wasn't wearing his gloves right now. After a second he belatedly worked it out. Vader didn't have hands at the moment, but he'd wanted to comfort Tarkin by stroking his face, so he'd used the Force. Tarkin lowered his hands and looked over at him.

"But for the conversations I was speaking of," said Vader, "Emfour meant you. _I_ meant you."

Mollified despite himself, Tarkin turned onto his side again to hold Vader properly. They still had so little time together. They had this one night, and then it was out to Exegol for Vader, and back to Coruscant for Tarkin, and who knew what shape Vader would be in when they saw each other again? Tarkin was long inured to the feeling of sending people he valued out on perilous missions. But with Vader in his current state, Tarkin felt an extra fear. It was hard to reassure oneself about risks when the risks lived inside a loved one's mind.

"Do you want to do that now?" he asked. "I'm listening."

"I do not know," said Vader, solemn again. He looked into Tarkin's eyes nervously. "There is... so much. I have been thinking. I would like to. But I do not know where to start."

"Well," said Tarkin. "You'll be going up directly against Palpatine tomorrow. I know he's a part of what you were distressed about before. I know he hurt you in a hundred creative ways; I've seen you having the flashbacks. But I'm still not sure I really understand the way things were. And I'd feel better able to support you if you told me more of that. How it started. How you became his apprentice. How it progressed. Where the sorest points are, for lack of a better word."

"Even to tell you how it started..." Vader looked torn, as though he couldn't quite find his way. "Even that is such a long and strange story"

"So tell me the beginning of the beginning, so to speak, and we'll see how far we get. After all, we'll have further opportunities to tell more of the story after this one. At least, I hope so."

Did Vader hope so? Was _this_ good enough to stay alive for, the knowledge that someone would hold him and listen to him and care how he felt? It might not be. It wasn't fair to either of them to keep asking this question, as if Vader's mental illness was somehow a referendum on how much he valued Tarkin, but Tarkin's mind kept coming back to it in all its variations, chewing on them.

Vader looked at him for another moment, wavering.

"I will tell you," he said at last. "But I want my mask."

"Of course."

Vader Force-lifted his mask up from the pile of suit components underneath the table. He telekinetically pressed it into place over his face and connected the necessary attachments.

Tarkin understood why Vader needed this. He was still very unused to being physically exposed, even around his lovers. Tarkin was asking him for another kind of exposure at the same time. And Vader had caught on, he suspected, to how his face gave more feelings away than he meant it to. It was a kind of privacy, being masked while they spoke of such things.

Vader's cape fluttered up from the shelf where it lay, and Vader arranged it around himself, covering his nakedness, tucking everything else below the mask away.

He did not look like his usual suited self. He cut an odd figure, slightly shrunken-looking, without the additional bulk of arms or legs. He had not bothered to put his helmet on over the mask, and the result was somehow more skull-like than ever. He looked like one of the projects Palpatine might cook up in those small-scale incubators of his, an artificial man only half-put-together.

"Do you want me to stop touching you?"

"No," said Vader, possessively Force-tugging him into place.

"Do you want me to ask questions, or do you want to be in control of what you tell me, yourself?"

"You may ask, so long as it is my choice how I answer."

"Fair enough." Tarkin got back into a comfortable position, his arm around Vader through the cape's fabric. He'd rarely spent much time touching Vader's cape; the fabric was surprisingly heavy, similar to that of his gloves, which had a sheen like leather at first glance but were actually woven from an ultrafine, flexible metal. "I suppose we should start at the beginning, then. How did you first meet him?"

"I was nine years old," said Vader.

"Really? That young?"

"Yes. I had just been accepted into the Jedi Order. That is another very long story; perhaps I will tell you another time." Vader turned his head slightly, and there was the closest thing Tarkin had ever heard to nostalgia in his voice. "It involves podracing. And Padmé. And the Battle of Theed."

Tarkin was bemused. Vader had mentioned before that he used to podrace, and Tarkin had been unsure whether or not to take him seriously; it wasn't generally a sport for humans. He remembered the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo, of course; the then-Queen Amidala had been only fourteen at the time. "You met Senator Amidala that young, too?"

"She was not a senator then. As I said. A story for later."

"All right. Well, I wasn't personally there, but I remember the Battle of Theed. That was at about the time Palpatine had just become Chancellor, wasn't it?"

"Yes. I had comported myself well in the battle-"

"You _fought_ in the Battle of Theed?" Tarkin interrupted. "When you were nine?" During the Clone Wars the Jedi had brought underage Padawans into battle all the time, but nine would have been pushing it even in their most desperately understaffed years, and if he understood correctly, this was before Vader even had any training.

"Yes. I oughtfought the whole Trade Federation fleet, destroyed their droid control ship, and saved the day."

Tarkin was beginning to wonder if this whole thing was some elaborate joke on Vader's part, like his supposed relationship with Neap. "But you said you'd only just been accepted into the Jedi Order. Didn't the Jedi-"

"They did not _exactly_ authorize it. They told me to hide. I did not follow orders."

Admittedly, that _did_ sound like Vader. "Go on.."

"After the battle, the Chancellor himself came to congratulate us," said Vader. "He knew what I had accomplished. He had also heard some of the Jedi discussion about me. There were some who believed I was the Chosen One, even then. We did not speak long, but he said that he would follow my career with great interest."

Tarkin nodded. That was the type of flattery Palpatine typically gave to people he was thinking of mentoring. Though, granted, such people were typically older than nine. "What happened after that?"

"Little enough at first. He was busy, but he checked in on me every so often. The Jedi did not like it. A youngling in early training is not meant to have much contact with the outside world. I was _not_ a youngling, I was apprenticed to Obi-Wan already, but I had missed so many of the earlier lessons that, in their eyes, I was as good as one. Obi-Wan resented me, and the others - if they wanted me at all, they wanted me studying with the four-year-olds until I could control my emotions. But the Chancellor took me seriously. I used to look forward to his summons. Every few months he would take me somewhere without the other Jedi, and we would talk about real things, grown-up things. Politics."

Tarkin's eyebrow quirked. "And the Jedi allowed that?"

"They had to. He was the Chancellor. But they resented it, of course. After our visits they often would take me aside and ask if he'd said or done anything to make me uncomfortable. If he'd touched me. But of course that was not what it was. They were only trying to sow distrust. Jedi are jealous creatures; the Chancellor could see that well enough. They did not want me listening to anything but their own indoctrination. They were afraid of my power. He was the only one who understood-"

Tarkin had been raising his eyebrows a little higher as this speech went on, but before he could formulate anything to say, Vader broke off. His form had abruptly gone rigid, underneath its cloak-blanket. As if he'd only just realized something terrible.

"Get out," said Vader.

Tarkin pulled away slightly, but he kept a hand lightly on Vader's cloaked shoulder. Vader so often needed Tarkin for reassurance, when things got like this. "It's all right, Vader. That's over. Palpatine's gone, and-"

"Leave me," Vader insisted, his deep voice thick with emotion. "Get _out._ "

And before Tarkin could do or say anything more, the Force caught him up. He was hauled into the air and thrown backwards, all the way out the room's door, which smoothly opened for him. He landed hard on the metal catwalk outside the room's entrance and skidded painfully to a halt.

A moment later, his bathrobe and slippers sailed out after him. He reached out reflexively and caught one slipper before it pitched over the catwalk's edge. The other two items landed in a heap next to him as the door slid decisively shut.

Tarkin lay there, dismayed, and caught his breath.

This catwalk was a liminal space within the fortress's structure. The air in Vader's private chambers was carefully filtered and pressurized, just like the air within a meditation chamber. The chambers themselves hung suspended in the middle of the fortress's second floor. Above Tarkin and below him, there were tangles of pipes that served as floor and ceiling only incidentally, though there must be some larger structure around them keeping the whole floor airtight. The catwalk, bare harsh metal, led from the door of Vader's room to the turbolift, and the space around it served as an airlock of sorts.

Tarkin picked himself partway off the catwalk and sat up. Nothing appeared to be bruised or torn, only scraped a little here and there. Nothing had broken the skin.

Tarkin had thought, by now, that they were beyond this sort of thing. Vader had made so much progress at handling his triggers without throwing Tarkin across the room. But all that progress had been done within a very formalized structure, under M4's direct supervision. Maybe there hadn't been as much of it as Tarkin thought. Maybe, without the medical droid, all Tarkin's efforts at helping were still only painful prods into parts of Vader's mind that neither of them knew how to handle.

Which would be _fine,_ he could _handle_ not knowing how to handle that, if not for the fact that M4 wasn't allowed to be a part of this anymore. He couldn't run to her for help, because Vader very emphatically and profoundly did not want her help with this part - and M4 herself had very strong feelings on the topic of Tarkin overriding Vader's choices. The two of them, however inept, were on their own.

And Vader was leaving in the morning, marching into a place that they didn't understand, to face down the physical manifestation of this demon he could not even bear to discuss.

The catwalk was not cold; no part of this fortress was allowed to be cold. But it was a harsh, sharp-edged metal that had never been meant for sitting on, much less sitting on naked. It bit into Tarkin's skin. He should put on his robe and slippers and get up and go deal with things as best he could, but he didn't, not just yet. He hunched forward and sat with his head in his hands.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daala can't sleep. Vader wishes he couldn't sleep. Tarkin faces an unexpected, difficult choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out I can only ever write 1 genre, and that genre is "soap opera, but evil"
> 
> (The angst gets pretty heavy toward the end of this chapter. To be honest, the angst is gonna dig in here and keep being heavy until the end of the story. We're on the angsty home stretch, here. I did warn you. I'll try to keep updating briskly, at least.)

Daala was too restless to sleep, though it was late enough in the evening to do so. She wandered around the upper floors of the fortress for a while. Tarkin had explained to her that on the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors, guests could roam as they please. But there was little enough there except the dining hall and the meeting room, and the guest rooms, and an empty multipurpose room that took up the whole eighth floor. Neap was probably finished receiving her orders by now, but Daala didn't want to go and find her. And Vader and Tarkin were, of course, occupied.

Eventually she went to the guest room and changed into her nightgown, brushing out her hair to fall loose behind her.

It was dark and grand in these rooms just like the rest of the fortress. There was a black double bed and the other necessary furnishings of a guest room, but they were dwarfed by the black walls and the big window overlooking the lava.

Tarkin had made the window opaque, but Daala set it transparent again. She liked the lava fields. Emperor Vader had told her about the Dark Side of the Force today. He'd said that this part of Mustafar was strong with it, and the ashy black plains criscrossed by burning rivers looked very much the way she imagined the Dark Side looking. Hot with rage, unrestrained, pouring destructively wherever it wished. Daala valued control, and Vader's lack of it bothered her. But it would be a lie to say that some part of her, deep down, did not enjoy destruction.

The Maw Cluster had been a cage, but a beautiful one. The sky outside her window on the _Gorgon_ had been full of shifting flame, oranges and yellows and stranger pastels, accretion disks that spun around the impenetrable disks of their event horizons. There had been scintillating flickers and flashes as matter was ejected, and as elements near the horizon were crushed together in unpredictable ways. Daala had liked to look out at those colors. Some nights, when it hurt too much to think of Tarkin, she'd imagined those black holes were her lovers. Their inexorable currents licking at her toes.

She wondered if Vader, alone in his fortress, ever looked at the lava that way. If he considered it a friend.

Daala fished in her luggage and got out one of the new games she'd bought. It was a tactics sim depicting skirmishes in strange, fantastical territories. Elfin creatures with bizarre magic powers, very unlike the Force; droids set with fanciful cannons for arms; heavy infantry units that could transform themselves, for a brief time, into invulnerable boulders. All set against each other on the wild laddery ledges of a cliff face, or the tide-swept rocks of a treacherous sea. Similar enough to real combat to be interesting; different enough to be a relaxing distraction. She lounged next to the window and played through a few levels idly, trying to soothe her mind.

She knew it wasn't fair to want Tarkin here with her. He had much more access to her generally than to Vader, and he'd been worrying about Vader. But she'd spent most of today unsure if she was going to survive to see the night, and then the evening unsure if she could even trust her own mind, and she'd needed to get straight to work planning a perilous mission on top of that. Even with all the material comforts at hand, it was going to take a while to wind down.

An hour passed. Mustafar didn't seem to get properly dark at night. The light shifted, the smoggy clouds overhead dimmed a little, but it was still possible to see for miles by the glow of the lava. Daala knew the time only because the desk next to her displayed it. The game was cute and well-designed, but even on hard mode, it wasn't hard enough to keep her fully absorbed this long. She did not want to resent Tarkin's absence or to waste energy pointlessly longing for him, but she found her restless mind increasingly drawn to the question of what, exactly, he and Vader must be doing without her.

Tarkin had said that he'd been with Vader without his suit on. What did that look like? Without all the leather and durasteel, Vader must be very sickly - Daala didn't know any medical details, but it was easy to infer he had difficulty with breathing, among other things. What was it like to submit to a man like that? Without the suit Vader would seem to embody weakness, yet he'd still have the strange magic, fueled by anger, that made him strong.

Could Vader feel her thinking about this? From all the way down on the second floor? She hoped not.

Guiltily, she imagined it. Vader lying propped up on some beautiful red and black drapery, languid and ill, a small oxygen mask covering his nose. His body, grotesquely misshapen from its many wounds. And Tarkin - this was the true thrill of imagining them together, the idea that there was someone for whom even proud, strong, invulnerable Tarkin would make himself small. Tarkin on his knees, bowing his balding head to the perverse vision before him. Asking, in a voice breathless with lust, how he might be allowed to serve his Emperor.

She snuck her hand under the skirt of her nightgown.

Later - much later - while she was lying in the bed trying unsuccessfully to shut her eyes, she heard the door swish open, and Tarkin crept into the room. Daala sat half-up so she could look at him. He was wearing his silver-gray bathrobe and slippers. He looked exhausted. He'd warned her that he would be tired, but she knew immediately that this wasn't merely sexual exhaustion. Something had gone wrong.

He gave her an odd, sidelong look. "I did warn you not to wait up for me."

"I couldn't sleep, sir."

Tarkin sighed. "Come here." He sat down at the edge of the bed, and she gratefully squirmed the rest of the way upright to sit beside him, leaning in to his warmth.

"What's wrong, sir?" she asked. He seemed to hesitate to answer, to consider denying that anything was, and she pressed on. "You _look_ like something didn't go well."

"I... no. I suppose it didn't." He put an arm around her. "Vader is... still struggling. More than I'd like him to be. But it wasn't just him. Neither the problems nor the delay. I was actually on my way back to you already, quite some time ago, but I happened to look at my datapad, and-" He paused again. "Actually, yes. If you're up anyway. I'm going to give this to you now."

"Sir?" she asked, perplexed.

He moved away from her slightly, just enough to fish in the pockets of his robe. "There's a high-priority memo that just came in from Military Intelligence. Good news, for once. We have a lead on one of the Force-sensitive operatives that they've been tracking. One of the ones I'm especially keen on recapturing. We have some reliable identifying information, and a strong clue as to his last known location."

"What's the problem with that, sir?"

He sighed shortly. He was no longer looking at her. "The problem is that it came at the wrong time, and it's not the sort of lead I expected. It's information that's going to be very emotional for Vader, and its political implications are delicate. I'm not sure just how he'll react. And we can't afford that now, not on the cusp of what might be the most important mission of our whole reign. Vader and I had a talk while I was in his quarters, and..." He scrubbed at his face with a hand. He looked half asleep already. "I'll confess I'm afraid for him. This is harder for him than you might know, even now. I don't want a whole additional pile of griefs on top of the current problem. I'd rather show it to him later, when he's come back from Exegol. When we have a little more breathing space."

Daala shifted sideways on the bed, disturbed. "Are you sure about that, sir? After what happened today, do you think hiding information is a good choice?"

"Yes," he said shortly. Defensively. "I've already instructed Captain Piett to leave it out of tomorrow's briefing. You didn't see Vader in his room tonight. If we pile more on for him to process at a time like this, he'll fall apart. And then the whole campaign against Rax's faction is lost. This isn't something I'm doing for my own advantage, nor for long. When he returns, I'll tell him."

"Then why are you telling _me,_ sir?"

He stood and went to the window, turning it opaque again. In the sudden gloom, he shrugged off his bathrobe and laid it over the back of a chair. He was so thin, even thinner than he'd been before the Maw; she could see the stark triangles of his shoulder blades and the scars that crossed them. "For the same reason, my dear. Because I'm worried about him. With any luck, you'll go to Exegol, defeat whatever you find there, and come home victorious. But it's occurred to me that, in a worst-case scenario, Vader may not want to come home."

Daala thought of what Tarkin had confessed over dinner, and what Neap had told him. About the Dark Side, which seemed to possess its users' minds more thoroughly than any ghost. "And this is his next target, sir. His next reason to live?"

"Yes. It's a risky move, and it may or may not work. But, in an emergency, you might need it." He pulled a folded flimsi from the pocket of his robe. "I'd much rather wait and speak with him about it myself. But I'm authorizing you to show this to him if and when you feel it's necessary. I've trusted Neap with some materials for that scenario as well. I trust your judgment. You'll both know."

He went to the bed and sat next to her again, handing it over. Daala unfolded it, unnerved, and read the information. Nothing on it seemed to warrant the level of drama that lay latent in Tarkin's words; it was a simple fact sheet of the type that Imperial Intelligence officers wrote up about high-value targets. There was a picture, and a name, and some rather scanty biographical information, along with an indication of where he'd been last seen. The young man pictured was the unknown X-Wing pilot, according to the fact sheet, who'd destroyed the Death Star.

_Name: Luke Skywalker,_ said the flimsi.

He didn't look like much. He was very young, the age of most new graduates from the Academy. There was very little in his background to distinguish him. If not for his Force-sensitivity, she'd have assumed that his success with the Death Star was only a lucky shot.

But looks could be deceiving; everyone important had been young and unassuming once. Daala knew that better than most. Still, something didn't add up. Vader hadn't seemed to like the Death Star very much, not the way she and Tarkin did. Under normal circumstances he would hunt down a man like Luke simply on principle, because he was a Force user who'd turned himself against the Empire, and dealing with Force threats was something only Vader could do. But if Vader was in crisis, consumed by hate and wanting to die, did Tarkin really think he'd snap out of it for _this?_ For just another hunting job?

There must be something extra, something here that would be meaningful to Vader in a way that it wasn't for her, but she couldn't see it.

"I don't understand, sir," she said.

"Good. That will keep you safe." She folded the flimsi and placed it on the bedside table, and Tarkin took a hold of her hand, gripping it tightly as if to keep her from floating away. "If he gets angry about this, you can blame me. I'll deal with him myself in that scenario."

"Yes, sir."

She still didn't like this, but she was very tired. The plan fit together in some semblance of a logical way. And now that Tarkin was here - now that she could feel his body heat beside her, hear his voice, smell his skin - her body was finally giving up its tensions. Her eyelids drooped, and it was a relief to feel so exhausted all of a sudden, a relief to know she _could_ rest before the trials that would face her tomorrow.

"You'll command a Super Star Destroyer in the morning," Tarkin said. "Let's get you to sleep." And she let him enfold her in his arms, tuck them both up under the soft black bedspread. Sleep came quickly.

She dreamed of stepping into a whirlpool of lava, which grew and grew, burning everything, as far as the eye could see.

*

Vader was still staring up at his own black ceiling, fighting a fit of humiliated rage, when M4 trundled into the room. He knew he looked foolish to her eyes, but he did not move. He heard her pause by the table and examine him critically.

"That's new," she said, looking down at the way he'd covered himself with his cape. "You okay there, Lord Vader?"

"Do not speak to me," said Vader.

"Oh," she said. "Okay, well, just so you know, I have to swap this mask out for the one that you'll use in your tank, and I'll need to uncover you so I can get the rest of your life support hooked up to the tank's systems. But I can be quiet while I do that. We can just... talk about whatever's upsetting you later, okay?"

Vader made a vague growl of assent.

He did not want to have to explain this, neither to her nor to Tarkin. It was a thing he should have realized long ago. He knew Palpatine was a liar; he'd known since the day that he fell. He should have questioned _everything_ , even these early things. But it had become such a habit to repeat them; it hadn't occurred to him to question. Not until he tried clumsily to say them aloud, and felt Tarkin's skeptical mind reacting, and realized how foolish he sounded.

The Jedi had not hated him. They had worried that Palpatine would harm him, and what burned him worst was that they were right. Palpatine _had_ harmed him, only not in the ways that they thought. Palpatine, not the Jedi, had sown distrust. He was the one who was jealous of Vader's power. He'd already known, even then, what he wanted to use that power for. So he'd worked slowly and patiently, not only to gain Vader's trust, but to pull his trust away from anyone else who might have it. To keep Vader all for himself. He had twisted Vader's thoughts through methods far subtler, far deeper than what he did to Admiral Daala; so subtle that they might not have involved the Force at all.

And Vader had not known it then. Even so many years later, when Vader knew perfectly well how deeply Palpatine had hurt him, he had not realized it started so early. Palpatine had said all those things to Vader's old, child self, and Vader had believed him, because Vader was _stupid._

Vader had hunted down the Jedi and murdered them all. He had known it was wrong, known he was becoming something monstrous, even on that first day, when he marched up the steps of the Jedi Temple crying tears of rage. But it was a natural wrongness. It felt _right_ in a topsy-turvy Sith way, because how long had the Jedi hated Vader? How long had they deliberately held him back, with their platitudes and condescension, denying him the things he needed most? How long had they used him as a tool in their treasonous plans? It was time he started hating them back.

But they had not hated him. Not all of them. Not in the ways he thought.

He did not want to think about this. It was a truth that would burn him to the ground if he let it. It was connected to everything, and if he followed its threads, they'd never end.

But maybe that was all right. Vader deserved this pain. Maybe it was good for him to burn.

*

In his dream he raged and lashed at the apparition even harder than before. It did not seem to do any good, but that did not stop him. He sent bolts of energy flying at it with his dream-hands, and it only laughed at him, pressing close to the stumps of his limbs where he was sure his hands had been a moment ago.

_I was a child,_ he growled, because, through some dream-logic, that seemed important. There were younglings running and crying in the halls of the Jedi Temple. There were kidnapped children cowering in their Imperial blacks in the Inquisitor's fortress. There was Vader, and Vader had been a child when Palpatine reached out and took him. Even now that he was broken and old, Palpatine would not stop reaching out. Palpatine did not want him ever to be free.

The apparition gave him a mocking smile. _You are so very close to understanding._

_No,_ said Vader. _I do not_ need _to understand. Tomorrow I will find you, and I will kill you forever._

_I am all the Sith,_ said the ghost. _I cannot be killed._

Vader mentally pushed back against it so hard that he woke himself up.

Her floated there in his tank, blinking, disoriented. His vision was as fuzzy as always. He reached out with the Force and made contact with what was around him. The lava that flowed beneath the fortress. The smoky sky above. Tarkin and Daala, asleep in their guest room; Captain Piett, asleep in his. The servants asleep in their quarters. And Neap, awake, just outside the edge of this room. Watching him.

He sent a mental pulse in her direction, not coherent enough to be understood in words. More of a question mark.

_Yeah,_ Neap said back. _I saw it._

It had been a long time since Vader spoke to anyone mind to mind this way. Even powerful Force users couldn't do this with just anyone. It required a close rapport, like that of family, or a master and apprentice. Neap wasn't exactly those things, but her mind was sensitive enough to be talented at it, and Vader had been responsible for her training. In the quiet night, with both of them focusing, that was enough.

_Tell me what you saw,_ said Vader.

_Not much you couldn't have told me on your own, to be honest. The thing I saw on you yesterday got more active when you were dreaming. It still looked funny to me the way I mentioned, like it couldn't decide if it was inside or outside you. Looked like it was trying to get your attention and you were pushing it away. Looked like you were having some big trauma feelings, too. Is that typical?_

If Neap had been someone closer to him, someone like Tarkin, it paradoxically would have been harder to let her see. That was one of the reasons why he'd pushed Tarkin away, though he couldn't have articulated it at the time. Vader's feelings had already been too big to handle. He couldn't handle Tarkin's feelings about his feelings at the same time.

But Neap didn't really care. She cared a little what Vader was feeling, but only because it was relevant to her job, and she preferred a job like this to being alone. He didn't have to worry that she'd think less of him, or that she'd tear herself apart trying to soothe him. She was here to observe and record, nothing more. She was diffident. Almost as good as a droid.

_My feelings are not your concern,_ said Vader. _Only the ghost._

_Suit yourself. Sorry I wasn't more helpful, but at least we know the thing in your dreams is the same thing I saw, and the fight's real._

Vader paused. _What time is it?_

_Not too late. A little after midnight. Why?_

Many more hours of this before dawn, then. He tried to believe that the struggle was worth it. He wanted to be free. But freedom, somehow, felt further away than it had ever been.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> En route to Exegol, Daala offers some information to Vader. He is unhappy - but not for any of the reasons she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *screams into a pillow about a whole lot of things that are not this fic*
> 
> I... I want to write a cute snappy chapter note and I have really run out of them. Not even sure what, if anything, to warn for. But, the ~~spice~~ fic must flow, so here is some more of Darth Vader's Massive Mental Breakdown for your delectation. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The _Executor_ arrived above Mustafar promptly in the morning, and Tarkin walked out to the landing platform to say goodbye to his lovers. Daala had dressed crisply in her uniform again, with the Grand Admiral's insignia on her lapel, and she'd tied her hair properly back. Tarkin was in his royal robes and circlet again, for the benefit of whatever pilots and attachés were watching.

The flimsi Tarkin had given her last night felt as though it was burning a hole in Daala's pocket.

Tarkin led her and Vader all the way to the lip of the platform. They were in front of people, so it did not occur to her to expect anything more than a regal, professional send-off. But, of course, things were different now. It both startled and pleased her when he gathered her up in his arms and kissed her fiercely.

"Come back to me victorious," he said when they separated, his hand tightening on her shoulder.

"Yes, sir," she said, and it took effort not to break into a glowing smile.

He moved to Vader, and the two of them focused on each other just as intently, though with a touch more awkwardness. Vader couldn't be kissed through the mask. Instead Tarkin took his hand, lacing his bare fingers through Vader's big black glove, and Vader grasped them tightly, pulling Tarkin's hand close to his chest.

Tarkin paused a moment, as if sorting through a tangled knot of emotions, before saying, "Come back to me safe."

There was a peculiar sour amusement in Vader's voice. "I will not call you 'sir.'"

"A 'yes' would suffice, Vader."

"I will come back to you," Vader promised.

Tarkin frowned slightly - both he and Daala had noticed the word Vader left out - but he let it go. Vader released his hand and they strode onto the shuttle, with Neap and Piett following. Tarkin nodded to them respectfully, but didn't waste further words.

The shuttle rose up to the _Executor,_ where they were met by a large honor guard. Daala walked at Neap's side behind Vader as they made their way to the bridge. Daala had never been on a Super Star Destroyer before, but it seemed to be laid out mostly the same as an ordinary Star Destroyer, only bigger. Formal introductions were made, and Vader briefly conferred with the chief navigational officer, ensuring that the wayfinder artifact could be connected to the _Executor_ 's navicomputer, before turning to Daala.

"Grand Admiral Daala, you have the bridge," he said. "I need to meditate."

Daala had expected this. She was the one who had the plan for this mission, such as it was. And she was the one who would command the _Executor_ on Exegol while Vader went to the surface in search of his master. She should get some practice in that role before the battle began.

"Thank you, my lord," she said, as Vader swept out of the room. There was a thrill in her heart as she turned to the bridge crew. This was a ship bigger than any she'd commanded before, the flagship of a fleet bigger than any she'd commanded before, and when they reached the Maw Installation she'd be commandeering even more. "Set course for Oba Diah."

The bridge crew briskly carried out their work and began the usual cant back and forth, confirming that systems were ready, giving readings. She watched them, keeping her body immobile and correct. This was routine, and she expected no issues, but it was also the first order she'd given on this bridge, and she needed to be exacting so as to form the correct first impression. Neap had stayed on the bridge as well, but she wasn't part of the official chain of command. She stood at ease looking out an unattended window. Daala ignored her.

After a minute, Admiral Ozzel sidled up to her. She recognized him from the various meetings of the Joint Chiefs; he was one of the ones who responded to her orders with barely-restrained contempt. And she'd taken the place that, on a normal mission, would be rightfully his. Daala was going to have to watch him carefully.

"Grand Admiral," he said, nodding.

"Admiral," she said curtly in response. She did not move her head to face him, nor change her facial expression. Her lips barely moved. "Is there a problem?"

"Not a problem, no." His voice was pitched low enough that it wouldn't carry. "I just wanted to ensure you were aware that there are certain ways we do things on the _Executor._ Established routines. I know you cut a good figure relaying Emperor Tarkin's orders, but this is the kind of mission where things may develop quickly. Perhaps you'll consider leaving the urgent decisions to those with more experience."

In one precise motion, Daala raised a hand in the air and snapped her fingers.

"Guards," she said in a voice that carried further than his, without allowing any emotion into her face. "This man just announced to me that he intends insubordination. Take him to the detention level."

She was gratified when stormtroopers did, in fact, step forward to take Admiral Ozzel by the arms.

"Have you gone mad?" he spluttered. "All I did was make a suggestion!"

"Yes, a suggestion that you would not take my orders. We'll deal with you after the mission." She gestured dismissively, and the troopers led him away.

Her eyes flicked across the crew pit, gauging reactions. Nobody protested; nobody looked shocked. She'd calculated correctly, then. Everybody here knew that an action of this nature was in character for Ozzel, and everybody would follow her instructions without the need for any larger struggle. Or, maybe, everyone on _this_ ship was so used to Vader's temper that Daala's relatively small show of force didn't register.

Either way, it was nice to outrank people.

She supervised the bridge without further event, giving occasional curt instructions, until they launched into hyperspace. Their next entry into realspace would be Oba Diah, just outside the Akkadese Malestrom; from there they would take a sublight route via Kessel and the Maw Installation before using Vader's wayfinder to navigate to Exegol. From Oba Diah onward, Daala would need to be on the bridge continuously; but for the next few hours, while they flew down an ordinary hyperlane, there would be nothing much for her to do.

When she'd stood there long enough to make her point, she left the bridge in the hands of the next-highest-ranking officer and went in search of Vader.

The mysterious flimsi was still in her pocket. She'd been thinking about it all morning. She'd considered what it meant to keep secrets. Daala had been Tarkin's secret for so long, and by the time that secret got out, it had taken three years to clean up the mess. She had been made to keep secrets from Tarkin and Vader, and that hadn't led to anything good. Tarkin had tried to keep Vader's mental illness a secret - for good reasons, with kind intentions - but it had only made everything even more muddled.

Daala did not want to keep secrets anymore.

She called up an interior map of the _Executor_ on a terminal so as to correctly find her way. Vader's personal quarters were not far from the bridge. It took only a turbolift ride down from the bridge tower and a walk through a few short corridors before she reached them.

The door was unmarked, big and black. It was fit with several entrance chimes representing varying degrees of urgency. She picked the mildest one - a small green button indicating that her concern was neither urgent nor directly relevant to the current mission, but that if Lord Vader wasn't otherwise occupied, she'd appreciate a moment of his time.

There was a few seconds' pause. Then the door parted for her and she stepped inside.

The room was large, stark black, and windowless. The usual accoutrements of a high officer's shipboard quarters were absent. The sound of Vader's breath filled the air. He was sitting inside an odd structure that must have been a meditation chamber: she'd heard of these things, but never seen one before. It was a black, jagged shape that lay open revealing a clinical white interior. Vader sat inside on a large, padded chair. He was fully suited and masked. He looked at her expectantly.

There were no Royal Guards here. She'd noticed that in Fortress Vader as well, though her mind had been fixed on other matters. An Emperor ought to be protected by a whole coterie, guards to protect his person and aides to protect his time, as Tarkin was while he worked in the palace. But Vader had scorned such things. He had no apparent need for them; whatever emergencies might happen in his presence, Vader could deal with them himself. Or he believed he could. Or, perhaps, he wanted the people around him to believe.

"Emperor Vader," she said as the door shut itself again behind her. "I wondered if I could have a word." She stood very straight and correct. She did not let any fear show. Technically, this was the first time they'd had a conversation just the two of them. Tarkin wouldn't be happy about this if it went wrong. But he'd taught Daala to trust her own judgment in the field, and she believed that she was making the right call.

"You have been granted one," said Vader.

"A bit of intelligence came in recently which wasn't included in your morning briefing. It's not relevant to this mission; it's a lead on the current position of one of the Force-sensitive operatives among the Rebels. I wondered if you wanted to hear it now, since we have some time on our hands, or if you would prefer to save your focus for Exegol and deal with the matter of the other operatives later."

Vader looked at her for a long moment. She hoped very much that she had chosen correctly. Vader couldn't become angry with her when all she'd done was allow him to make this choice for himself. Could he?

"The Force-sensitive operatives," he said at last, bitterly. "The Jedi."

"Neither of the two of them has formal Jedi training, as I understand-."

"They would have had it. In a different world."

Daala stood patiently. He had not yet told her either a yes or a no.

At length Vader stood from his chair and stepped out of the chamber. He did not walk to Daala, but past her, pacing to his communications panel. He seemed to be brooding more deeply than necessary. "Tell me, Grand Admiral Daala, do you ever tire of being pointed at targets and set loose? Do you ever question what you are told?"

"I rather enjoy having targets, my lord. I question about as often as most officers. Why do you ask?"

Vader stared into the depths of the comms panel. "I have no interest in the Jedi. Exegol is my only concern. Is that all you wished to ask?"

"Yes, my lord," said Daala. She was relieved; this was the best possible outcome. No secrets being kept against anyone's will, but also no highly emotional information making its way to Vader when he might not be ready. She turned to go.

"Wait," said Vader abruptly.

Daala turned back toward him, feeling a sudden, strange dread. Vader looked more dour than ever. He looked as though wheels were slowly turning behind his mask.

"Grand Admiral," said Vader, " _why_ was this information left out of my briefing?"

Oh. She'd miscalculated after all. Even without the flimsi, the knowledge that Vader's information diet was being managed for him, in and of itself, might be too much.

Well, there was no help for it. Time to forge ahead. Daala folded her hands in front of her. "Emperor Tarkin felt as you do, my lord, that it would be better for you to focus on Exegol rather than being distracted by other developments. He preferred a plan in which you were briefed about it when you returned. But he also felt that circumstances might change during the mission, so he authorized me to share the information with you if and when I felt it was necessary. Given what happened last time I withheld information from either of you, I felt it was safest to clear the air immediately."

He took a prowling step towards her. "You went against Emperor Tarkin's wishes."

Of all the complaints she'd feared Vader might have, this was not one. Daala was confused. "I was within my authority to do so."

Vader sounded wary, intrigued. Or was she reading that into his voice herself? Without a face to look at, it was so hard to tell. "You seem so profoundly his creature. Yet you defy his orders as soon as he is not here to watch you. Who are you really, Grand Admiral Daala?"

"With all due respect, I think you're making too much of this. I did not disobey any order. I was given authority to choose when and how to disclose this matter. My opinion as to the wisest time to do so diverged from Emperor Tarkin's. But an order and an opinion are not the same. Has something distressed you, Emperor Vader?"

" _Why_ did your opinion diverge? Why did you go behind his back? Did you feel his opinion was immoral?" His voice was low and mocking. "Did you feel concern for the Jedi? Did you believe it unwise to treat me as a weapon that can be ignorantly pointed as the Emperor wishes? Do you believe that you _respect_ me more than he does?"

Daala was increasingly confused. Vader was clearly driving at something, but she did not know what it was. "None of those, my lord. I simply felt, after yesterday, that this option was most prudent. You can imagine that the concealment of information is a bit of a sore point right now."

"You are correct." He was circling her now. She turned on her heel to stay facing him. "You do not respect me. You resent my existence. Don't you, Grand Admiral?"

She took a breath. _He needs the truth blunt and unvarnished,_ Tarkin had said. "No, my lord. I do not resent your existence. I merely resent that you are in charge of the galaxy. I resent that you appear mentally ill and unfit for your position, yet the people around you make excuses for you. And I resent that Emperor Tarkin took up with you when I was all but forgotten in the middle of a black hole cluster. I do respect your power, and that you are trying your best to deal with forces beyond what the rest of us can comprehend. I'm sure we both have reasons to resent each other, my lord. But the wellbeing of the Empire is at stake, so we're going to have to grit our teeth and work together regardless."

"Is that what you care about? The wellbeing of the Empire? Yet it has ill-used you."

Daala drew back, disturbed. She knew what he was talking about. There were plenty of people in the Empire who'd been cruel to her or tried to hold her back; Admiral Ozzel a few minutes ago was one of the mildest examples. But Daala did love the Empire. Its conceptual core, the design of it - which was partly Tarkin's, after all - remained pure in her mind, and she loved it as fiercely as she loved him. In some dream-logic way, Daala sometimes felt that they were one and the same. Tarkin was what would happen if the very idea of Empire grew arms and legs and put on a uniform. He ruled her because he was the thing that happened when people needed to be ruled.

But she did not want to say any of that to Vader.

"You cannot answer me," said Vader, taking a step closer. Backing her further into the room. "You are afraid."

She wanted to deny it. To assure him, in the firmest terms, of her loyalty. But if she said it aloud, then Vader might call it a lie. He might pry her mind open the way he had yesterday. Daala did not want that. If she was lying, she did not want to know.

He took another step. "Tell me about loyalty, Grand Admiral Daala. Where does yours lie?"

"You know where, my lord," she bit out. "Everyone knows where."

"Not everyone. Some say you are a seductress. An ambitious child without the skill to gain power on your own. Some say you took up with Emperor Tarkin merely for the advantages he offered you. Some say other things."

Daala decided that she was going to stop backing up. That was in Tarkin's Theory Of Dealing With Vader, wasn't it? Don't let him bully you. Set boundaries. She planted her feet and looked up into Vader's mask. She snarled at him, her face barely moving. "I am loyal to my Emperor."

"Strange." He towered over her. His respirator was very loud. Daala wondered if there were angles from which a person, venturing too close, would feel the exhaust from Vader's mask on their skin. "Your feelings for him are strong. Yet he left you, did he not, with no guarantee he would ever return. He took a new lover without even informing you. He expects you to do his bidding without question, without giving you the information you need. And the moment he had the slightest cause to doubt you, he handed you over to _me._ Where does this loyalty come from, Grand Admiral? Your mind is strong. Lust alone could not make you cleave so closely to such a man. There is something else."

Daala stared at him. "Don't you love Emperor Tarkin yourself, my lord? If you don't, then you should take that up with him. If you do, then you should stay out of his other affairs. I'm sorry you have such a poor opinion of him."

She had no idea where this had come from. Vader's resentment seemed to go far deeper than the mere issue of the flimsi. Tarkin had said that Palpatine liked to triangulate people against each other, and Vader had learned at Palpatine's feet. Was that what he was doing? Trying to make her resent Tarkin, so that she would go away and leave Tarkin all for him?

Or - worse - trying to make her resent Tarkin, so that Vader could steal her away for himself. She'd wondered, yesterday, if Vader was interested in her that way. Daala had met men before, mostly the kind who needed to be thrown out airlocks, who were full of slick insistences that Tarkin wasn't doing it right. That their own way of ruling her would be so much kinder.

"How do you know that your loyalty," Vader continued, brushing off her objections, "comes from _you?_ "

Daala let out her breath harshly. "We are done here, my lord. I'll see you on the bridge."

It was insubordinate to turn and leave without being dismissed, but she didn't care. Tarkin would back her up. Vader was vastly out of line, even by the standards of an Emperor. This was simply none of his business.

She tried to turn and leave.

Her feet were rooted to the spot. Her leg muscles contracted, but it was like her boots had become powerfully magnetic, stuck to the bulkhead below them.

Vader's voice was mocking. "If you wish to stand your ground against me, that can be arranged."

"Let me go," Daala barked, feeling a sudden chill.

Tarkin was not here to protect her this time. She could invoke his protection from a distance - she could remind Vader that his co-Emperor would be _very displeased_ if she was harmed - but would it matter? Vader didn't seem to care about Tarkin's good opinion at the moment. He probably wouldn't kill her - he knew he would need her on Exegol - but he could hurt her in a thousand ways, most of which she was sure she'd never imagined.

Or he could rape her, if that was where his interest lay. Daala didn't outrank Darth Vader. She couldn't have _him_ thrown out an airlock. She could complain to Tarkin afterwards, like an offended schoolchild running to the teacher, but the damage would be done.

"Stop that," said Vader curtly. "I want nothing from you but answers. But you _will_ answer me."

"You have yet to ask a question that makes sense, my lord." Daala was surprised that her voice came out so steady.  She felt as though Vader was far from her, his voice a distant echo. Everything was far away.

"Of course not. You do not wish to understand." He started walking, circling her again, and this time she couldn't keep turning to face him. "Think of it this way. We are here to defeat Sheev Palpatine, are we not? To strike even the ghost of him out of the galaxy forever."

"Of course we are, my lord."

"Then think about what that means. Palpatine trained me. I trained Neap and others. Palpatine trained Tarkin. Tarkin trained you. When we destroy this ghost, will he be gone? Or will we all remain in the shapes he designed for us, pretending we defeated him? The loyalty you feel, the allegiances and enemies you think you have, the things you want and do not want for yourself, how do you know they are real? How do you know they are not merely thoughts that Palpatine put in your head, like the orders he gave you while he was alive?"

"You said they were not," Daala protested. Even in her faraway state, she felt an extra chill of horror. She had been so distraught yesterday at this very question. She had wanted to resign from Imperial service forever on the mere suggestion that it could be true. And it was Vader who had assured her that it could not. It had taken such an effort to make herself believe him.  "Just yesterday, my lord. You said you could tell somehow, with your Force senses, that it wasn't like that."

"I have changed my mind," Vader growled. "Answer the question."

Daala took a long breath, trying to get her bearings. Her feet on the floor felt distant from her, like the rest of her body, but she knew they were real. She herself had taken this physical stance so as to stay strong, and now she could not abandon it no matter what she felt. She _was_ strong. If Vader had tried to take that from her, he had failed.

"If you wish me to answer you willingly, my lord," she heard herself say, "then let go of me."

"I can take the answers from you either way," said Vader.

She knew that already. He knew that she knew. "I said what I said, my lord."

There was a long pause, longer than she wanted it to be. Vader had stopped circling. Unfortunately, that meant he was behind her now.

"I hope for your sake that you have a good answer," he said at last, and released her.

She felt the slight wobble as her feet became movable again. She did not change her posture, nor turn to look at Vader, though she could hear his breath very close. She moved one foot back and forth very slightly, the toe and then the heel, just to reassure herself that she could. She felt a little bit more settled in her body, though not nearly as much as she needed to be.

Daala thought she was beginning to recognize what was happening.  _If we pile more on for him to process at a time like this,_ Tarkin had warned, _he'll fall apart._ This was Darth Vader falling apart.  _He falls back on intimidation when he feels unsure._

He was not trying to alienate her from Tarkin, not in the deliberately manipulative ways she'd imagined. He was saying these awful things because _he,_ all of a sudden, felt alienated from Tarkin. And maybe from everyone and everything else. She didn't understand how a mere concern about sharing information could have set this off, but she didn't need to know. Tarkin had made it clear that Vader was suffering and struggling mentally even more than he'd let on. And so the way to get out of this encounter alive was to address Vader's doubts. Not hers. To calm him down.

_Calming down Darth Vader_ would be a disturbingly difficult task, but Daala had done difficult things before.

"I think, my lord," she said, "that to dwell on that question is to admit defeat. I did think about it after yesterday. If there is evidence that one's mind has been tampered with, then of course one should pursue it to the fullest extent. But if we let ourselves be mired with doubt in the absence of evidence, we will be paralyzed. And if that happened, Emperor Palpatine will _win_. We won't be able to stand against him firmly, because we won't know if our desire to do so is real. The fear of being influenced that way is even deadlier than the influence itself. Or did Tarkin never explain that principle to you?"

"He has explained it." Daala thought she detected a change in Vader's voice, a lowering of the threat level by one notch, from predatory rage to sullenness. "So you are _not_ certain. But you choose to press on despite your doubts."

"When I do have doubts, my lord, it seems the wisest course of action."

"Even doubts as to your loyalties."

"That is not what I said, my lord. But it would be applicable to doubts of that kind."

"Let us dispense with loyalties, then." He moved again, circling back in front of her. "What do _you_ want, Grand Admiral Daala? For yourself."

His mask, peering down at her, betrayed no useful information. She squared her shoulders. She didn't want to talk about her deepest feelings with Darth Vader, not while he was in this state, but she would do what was necessary. "I want to prove myself, my lord. For so long nobody wanted to give me that chance; so many people still don't. I want to show the galaxy what I can really do."

"You are correct." He faced her now. He did not touch her, but she had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze. "There is something dark in you, Grand Admiral, something burning, buried under all of Tarkin's lessons. When I first met you I recognized it, but I did not know what it was. Now I do."

Daala kept her face frozen and calm, looking up at him. "Is that what has disturbed you, my lord? Are you bothered by something you see in my mind?"

Vader's voice had gone lower and more urgent than ever. "You are angry. You are talented. You grew up in a place where almost no one believed in you, and yet your talent remained. From the time that they first began training you, you have outdone almost everyone. But they did not take you seriously, or you believed that they did not. They envied your abilities, but you were not like them. They held you back. They did not understand. I recognize this feeling very well, Grand Admiral."

Daala resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose. She did not entirely like being described this way. "I won't deny it, my lord, but that stage of my life is long past. Under the current regime, I've had the opportunities-"

"But one man did take you seriously," said Vader, interrupting her. She had a peculiar suspicion that, although this conversation felt like an interrogation, he wasn't even listening to what she said. He held up a single stabbing finger. "Just one, in all the Empire. And, in return for that, he asked for more than you ever should have given him."

Daala stared at him defiantly. There were a lot of things people said about her.  And her least favorites, even worse than the ones who called her a slut or a seductress, were the people who looked at her and saw a victim. As if Tarkin had somehow forced himself on her. As if she was only a helpless puppet in his hands.

"That is not how it was, my lord," she said coldly. "I made a choice."

Sure, she'd been young and naive; she'd had a galaxy of reasons to be desperate to please him; he'd been her commanding officer. But Daala had also been strong.  She had seen both of her options stretching out in front of her: one long future at Tarkin's side, doing exactly as he willed, another one low-ranking and alone. She had assessed them both with her eyes open and unflinching, the way an Imperial officer was meant to assess things, and she'd moved for the one she preferred.

Vader looked at her for a long moment, several breaths. Then he turned and took a few steps away, showing his caped back to her.

"I do not resent you, Grand Admiral," he said. "You are dismissed."

It took a great effort of will to walk out properly, straight-backed, at a sedate and dignified pace, rather than running. Daala held her face immobile, just in case any other officers or troopers walked by in the halls. All the way through the _Executor_ 's unnecessarily long twists and turns until the door closed behind her in her own assigned quarters - a berth that she'd never seen before, but which was merely a slightly bigger version of what she'd had on the _Gorgon._ She curled up there, pulling her knees to her chest, digging her trembling fingers into her own hair.

She took deep breaths. There was another hour or two to go before she had to return to the bridge; time enough to put her mind back into order. She needed a glass of water, or maybe tea. She'd go and get that for herself in just a moment when her heart stopped racing. When she was a little more centered in her body again.

Aside from all the ways Vader had just pushed past Daala's personal boundaries, there was a bigger problem here. Vader, if she had read beween his lines correctly, was questioning his loyalties. Questioning, by extension, all the other people who might have been influenced in the same ways as him.

He  had described it in terms of individuals: herself, him, Tarkin and Neap. But he had also questioned Daala's loyalty to the Empire, and the conclusion was inescapable. Emperor Palpatine had not only influenced certain people. He had influenced the whole galaxy. He'd had help from other visionaries, including Tarkin, but Palpatine was the one who'd reached into the heart of the ailing Republic and molded it to his own design. And if Vader was paranoid about Palpatine's influence now, if he had the urge to tear down everything that bore his master's fingerprints, then that was a target larger and more appealing than any other.

The Empire. Itself.

If he hadn't thought of it yet, he would soon. Daala had warned Tarkin about this already, and Tarkin had barely batted an eye. _When he's well enough to discuss it,_ he'd said. But there was not going to be a time like that. Vader was never going to be well, and Tarkin wasn't going to listen to any criticism until he was. It would be a perfect _folie a deux_ : one of them on a rampage, destroying everything his former master built; the other covering for him in a codependent haze and betraying every ideal he'd once held dear.

And no one could stop them. Daala couldn't do it herself, not if Tarkin wasn't on her side.

There were not enough tall glasses of water or deep breaths for this. It was just her luck, Daala thought bitterly, that she'd finally been let back into the Empire just as it all fell apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like, no, daala, he's not going to sexually assault you, he's just going to force you to discuss some of your deepest and most uncomfortable feelings and then still somehow make it all about him!
> 
> (these characters all are garbage and i love them)


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daala makes a brief stop at the Maw Installation to pick up one more weapon - and receives some unwelcome news.

Vader heard the chiming that indicated the _Executor_ was coming out of hyperspace. He didn't move from where he was sitting, on the chair in his open meditation chamber, staring at the wall. This was only Oba Diah. It would be another few hours before they reached Exegol; Vader didn't need to do anything yet.

He could feel the bustle of the _Executor_ 's crew, thousands of people who were familiar to him in aggregate, if not individually. All of them going back and forth like Imperial automatons on the tracks Palpatine had prepared for them. Beyond it, there were the other ships of Death Squadron, too far for him to feel in much detail, and the empty background hunger of space. And something else - a presence he could only slightly feel, coming gradually closer.

Vader had never bothered flying to the Akkadese Malestrom before. It felt strange, dark and layered in a way he would not perceive clearly until he was further in. The ordinary dim confusion of a dust cloud, but with other things, blacker things, hungrier things lurking inside. He had guessed correctly when he told Daala that a black hole cluster like hers would be strong with the Dark Side. The Sith would have been drawn to it long before she was.

Presently one of his entrance chimes sounded, a slightly more insistent one than before, indicating that the entrant's concern was mission-relevant, but not urgent. Vader could feel Neap's mind, watchful and uncomplicated, behind it. He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the controls and the door opened.

Neap walked in. She had surrendered her Inquisitor's jacket before coming to Mustafar, and nobody had a regular Imperial uniform in her size, so she still wore her normal gray and brown clothes, plus a bit of armor here and there. She had to duck her head to fit through the door. "Lord Vader," she said, nodding in greeting.

Vader didn't feel like nodding back. "What is your concern?"

"Just checking on you. We never spelled out my job duties, but I'm here to help you kick Lord Sidious's dead butt, and someone's got to make sure you're functional in time to deploy. I don't think Grand Admiral Daala's going to do it." She gave him a sidelong glance. No doubt some part of her found it satisfying, after all the torments Vader put her through, to see him mired in regret. "Looks like you scared her pretty badly."

Vader cast around for Daala's mind, but with so many other people crowding the _Executor,_ he couldn't pick her out. When it came to detecting people, Vader's senses depended not only on proximity but on how much those people meant to him; and despite the painful sympathy he'd felt for Daala, he still did not care for her much as a person. "She should be on the bridge now."

"Yeah, she is. No issues there. If there's one thing that woman knows how to do, it's keep a sabacc face." Neap crossed her arms. "You want to tell me what she's afraid of?"

Vader looked at the wall dourly. "We had a conversation."

"Yeah, that doesn't narrow it down."

"I saw more of her than she wished me to see. It is a common complaint."

Daala had thought Vader was trying to turn her against Tarkin. He wasn't, or at least, that hadn't been his real goal. He had only been trying to sort things through. Tarkin had been trained by Palpatine, and although he didn't take the same sadistic joy in manipulation, he did know the same manipulative techniques. He knew how to manage carefully what he told Vader so as to get the correct result out of him at the correct time. And he knew how to make a person like Daala loyal to him, no matter how he chose to use her. Loyal to him, and no one else.

It wasn't that Vader objected on moral grounds. He'd already known Tarkin and Daala's relationship was unethical, right from the first time Tarkin told him about her. It hadn't bothered him then. He and Tarkin were both monsters. They knew how to meet each other in their full monstrousness, without pretense; that was why they'd grown to love each other. If Vader was going to start objecting on moral grounds to things Tarkin did, then he could start with the planet they'd blown up together and work his way down the list. Daala would be several hundred items down from there.

It was just that Tarkin had talked so prettily about how Vader was free now. Supposedly Vader could choose everything for himself now: what he wanted to do with life, how he wanted to see himself, even his religion. But Tarkin and Daala were not the kind of people who could help Vader learn to do that. Not if they still wanted to manipulate, and to be manipulated, in the ways Palpatine taught them. Vader could not trust such people. They might sincerely want him to be free, but their whole concept of what that meant was tainted. And Neap was no better, this Dowutin woman he'd tortured and forced to the Dark Side, who still thought she could freely choose to work with him again. She didn't understand how freedom worked either.

"Fair," said Neap. "If we're talking about minds, though, yours isn't looking so hot right now either. You good to go, or do you need something?"

"I need nothing," said Vader, a little more harshly than he'd meant to.

"Uh huh. You want to come up to the bridge, then?"

Vader did not want to be on the bridge. He did not want to be anywhere. He needed a place in the galaxy that didn't have Palpatine's fingerprints all over it. But there was no such place. Palpatine had taken over the whole galaxy. Even the fringes of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, planets too faraway and lawless to see Imperial rule, still feared the long reach of his power.

Say Vader went further than that. Say he fled to some other galaxy, some perfectly uncharted territory. What then? He didn't truly believe it would be better there. Maybe there were galaxies that had never bowed down to an Emperor, but people would still be twisted and used and controlled by others there. It would just look different.

 _You will never be free,_ whispered a voice at the back of his mind.

He had never heard it while awake before, but it was instantly familiar, and he was not very surprised. They were coming closer in to the cloud of dust and fire where Palpatine's new body awaited him. Vader suspected he was going to hear more, louder and louder, the closer they came.

Vader would deal with this ghost. He would strike it from the universe and destroy any remnant that could possibly return. And then afterwards he would have the luxury of determining if there was anything in the galaxy that was not already too far gone. Anything his master had not already broken beyond repair. Anything, for that reason or another, worth continuing to live for.

*

Past Kessel, the _Executor_ followed the route Tarkin and Daala both knew, gliding very carefully towards the burning confusion of the Maw Cluster itself. Daala stood at the bridge's window, hands clasped behind her back, watching expressionlessly as the Akkadese dust cloud gradually gave way to spiraling flames.

She did not want to be back here. It was irrational, but something deep inside her screamed at the sight. If she let herself be taken back here, said her instincts, she might never be allowed to leave again.

It must be terrible to be a Jedi or a Sith, Daala thought, and to have to constantly examine such feelings to see if they were magical premonitions or mere neuroses. Daala had no need for such examination. She knew why she feared this, and she knew it was folly. There were plenty of things to fear, where they were going, but not that kind of imprisonment. Not any longer.

She heard Neap's lumbering footsteps approaching. Daala didn't turn, but allowed the Dowutin to settle in and stand comfortably at her side.

"Neap," she acknowledged. There was no choice but to be informal and use the chosen name, since no one had bothered to give Neap a rank.

"Grand Admiral."

"How is Lord Vader?"

"Eh. He'll get here." Neap sounded relaxed as she gazed out at the flames and the dust. That made one of them, Daala thought. Her voice was gentle now, if a bit gravelly. "Things live out there, don't they? Big things. Not in the black holes, but in the dust."

"The summa-verminoth? Yes. I've hardly ever seen them, but they're real." Daala glanced sideways at Neap, curious now. "You can feel them out there? With your Force senses?"

"Yeah."

"What does this place feel like to you?" Vader had said that the Dark Side of the Force was strong in black holes, but he'd never actually been here.

"Dark. Hungry. Heavy. I don't know if what I'm feeling is Exegol yet, or just the black holes. There's so many of them, and they might be nodes themselves; they'd mask whatever's deeper in. But the Dark Side's strong in there. Stronger than on Mustafar. Whatever's in there, it's... primal." Her nostrils flared in an odd expression, as if there was pleasure in this. As if it hurt but in a good way, a welcome way, feeling so much Dark Side so close by.

"Do you think that's what Emperor Vader feels?" Daala asked. She'd been chewing over the problem of Vader in every spare moment. Vader was so volatile. Obviously he'd have to deal with the Dark Side to get to his ghost - but such a concentration of Dark Side, at a time like this, could not be good for him. What happened in battle if Vader became actively self-destructive or turned on his own troops? She had contingency plans for those things - including but not limited to the flimsi, which he had yet to read. But no plan was ever really safe in the face of a wrathful Darth Vader.

"More or less." Neap folded her arms, glancing down at Daala with something that might or might not have been sympathy. "He's gonna get worse before he gets better. Don't make it your problem any more than you have to. I'll be down there with the ground team keeping an eye on him."

The _Executor_ twisted and turned through the reddish haze of the Maw Cluster, with the rest of Death Squadron following closely behind. Presently the area in front of them opened out into a bubble of clear space. The Maw Installation floated in the bubble's exact center. In contrast to the brightly burning sky, the Installation was small and ugly, little more than a large asteroid hollowed out into a series of work chambers, with the _Gorgon_ and its three sister Star Destroyers slowly orbiting. A few other large objects floated in ungainly spots, projects under construction or prototypes held in stasis, close enough to the asteroid not to be sucked away by the black hole cluster surrounding it.

" _Executor,_ " said the Maw's comms officer as Daala's bridge crew sent the appropriate clearance codes. "We weren't expecting you."

"This is Grand Admiral Daala," said Daala into the comms. "Emperor Vader is with me. We need to requisition several Maw resources for an urgent mission. Get me Assistant Director Ronan."

"Yes, of course. One moment, sir."

Brierly Ronan was Daala's ill-fated replacement as commander of the Maw Installation. Somebody had to stay there keeping the scientists in line, after all. Ronan had worked with Director Krennic on the Death Star project, and he was one of the few from that team who'd survived after the battles of Eadu, Scarif, and Yavin. His assignment here was both a punishment for his old team's missteps and a chance, in time, to redeem himself. Judging from Tarkin's own stories about this man, Daala suspected that some of her hard work keeping the Maw team disciplined would be undone under Ronan's command. But there was no sense wasting energy being unhappy about that; she had far grander and more perilous tasks ahead of her now. The Maw was profoundly isolated from news of the wider galaxy, but Ronan, at least, would have passed along the news about the change of regime.

While Ronan was on his way, Daala sent someone to drag Vader to the bridge. They would need him and his wayfinder as soon as this conversation was concluded.

After a short delay, Assistant Director Ronan appeared in hologram form in front of Daala's station at the center of the bridge. "Grand Admiral Daala. Congratulations on your promotion."

There was a slight irony in his voice, which she ignored. "I'll skip the pleasantries, Assistant Director, since this is time-sensitive. I'm requisitioning the Death Star prototype."

She watched as Ronan's eyebrows rose.

There was, in fact, a prototype Death Star gathering dust in the Maw Installation. It was the largest of the odds and ends floating in close orbit around the asteroid. It didn't look much like the finished project from the news vids; it was skeletal, containing only a reactor core, superlaser, and simple sublight engines strung together on a durasteel frame. It was also smaller. The superlaser was still powerful enough to destroy, say, a large moon. This version of the project had been finished only far enough for a few secret tests of the weapon, long before Daala's first arrival at the Maw; it had then been stowed here while Krennic's team turned its slow, frustrating, bureaucratic gaze to the engineering problems of a full-scale crewed version.

This part of the plan had been Daala's idea. Tarkin had chuckled indulgently, but agreed. Simply blasting Exegol to pieces was not a good solution to the problem it posed, not before they had figured out what exactly Exegol _was._ Not until Vader had done whatever he needed to do, confronted his ghost, broke the resurrection machinery, found closure. Not until all the immediate threats were broken. But afterwards, particularly if Exegol presented a very large and well-populated target, a Death Star superlaser would be a very efficient method for mopping up the scraps. Depending on what exactly they found there, it could also serve as a psychological weapon.

The prototype had its limitations, of course. It lacked a proper targeting system and would be difficult to aim. Its engines were weak, slow and imprecise. It lacked shielding, which was another reason not to bring it in until the battle's end. There was a small chance that a structure so large and fragile, in the twisting and gravitationally difficult paths from here to Exegol, would simply come apart. Daala had factored all this in to her plan.

"We are at your service, of course," said Ronan.

"Assemble a skeleton crew," said Daala. "I'd prefer volunteers if you can get them. Officers who've dreamed of crewing a Death Star. They may or may not return. I'm going to take Death Squadron further in to the Maw, on the route Emperor Palpatine used to take, if you're familiar with that. The _Executor_ will drop navigational markers to show the way. Exactly twenty minutes after we depart, I want the prototype to be taken in after us, following our route precisely. The crew will receive further instructions when we rendezvous at our destination."

"As you wish, sir."

"As a precaution, I also want the Sun Crusher project and the most essential personnel covertly evacuated to the edge of the Malestrom. Exit Protocol D-3. You'll be contacted again from there when it's safe to return."

Ronan raised his eyebrow further, but he must be able to follow her logic. The astrophysics of clusters like the Maw were poorly understood. The risk was small, but there was a slight chance that the destruction of a planet so close to the nearest gravity wells would make the surrounding area unstable for a while.

"I'll get on those things right away," he promised. "But, ah, Grand Admiral - you're going further into the Maw? On the late Emperor Palpatine's old route?"

"Yes. That's what I said."

There was real hesitance in the Assistant Director's expression. "Then you're, ah, aware of the other fleet that went that route a few hours ago?"

Daala froze in place, willing herself not to react. "What fleet?"

"I don't exactly know, sir. They had the appropriate clearance codes, but they wouldn't otherwise hail us or respond to our comms. They only swept past the Installation and further into the cluster. Quite rudely, really."

She let out a short breath. "Rax's faction. It must be. How many ships?"

"Five _Imperial_ -class Destroyers, sir, and a few freighters. No dreadnaughts. A smaller force than yours, but only just. Does that, ah, change any of your orders, sir?"

That fit with the latest news she'd been told about Rax's faction. It had been decimated further and further, under Vice-Admiral Sloane's relentless pursuit, to about this size. But she had not expected that they would know how to come here - much less that they would choose to come here _now._

Daala had been told that only Palpatine knew how to get to Exegol. Janus Greejatus hadn't known where it was. But perhaps someone else had been given the route. What did it mean that they were there _now?_ They couldn't know Vader's plans, not unless there was a mole placed very highly indeed. More likely the timing was a coincidence. Perhaps they'd decided that the time to resurrect Palpatine was _right now._

"I'll notify Emperor Vader before we continue," Daala said crisply, "but for now my orders stand. Let's have the Death Star prototype wait forty minutes, not twenty, before it follows." Given the slow speed of its engines, the actual delay in its arrival would be longer. "But you still need to assemble a skeleton crew-"

She broke off, hearing sudden heavy footsteps behind her, and an unmistakable mechanical breath. She did not turn.

"Your orders are not changed, Assistant Director," said Vader.

"Ah," said Ronan, paling slightly, as people tended to when Vader suddenly loomed up before them. "M-my Lord Vader. Yes, good, I'm glad everyone's on the same page, then. I'll get on that immediately."

"Do so," said Vader, and upon some Force impulse that was invisible to Daala, the connection closed.

She did turn to him then, but only slightly, her head turning barely enough to take the peripheral shape of him in. "You heard, then, my lord. That there will be ships waiting."

"I did not need to hear," said Vader. "They are down there. _He_ is down there. I can sense it. Everything here is coming to its end."

Daala fought the urge to shiver. She was still very unsure of Vader's current mental state, and Neap's words on that topic had not exactly reassured her. "Palpatine is down there, my lord? Himself?"

"Himself, or something like him."

"On the surface of Exegol, you mean? Or in a ship?"

"Not in a ship."

"You're ready to face him?"

"No one is ever ready. But we press on despite our doubts, don't we, Grand Admiral? I will face him."

This was a slightly odd conversation to have. Vader was above Daala in the chain of command, but he'd entrusted to her the task of planning this battle and overseeing it from on high, at the helm of his flagship, while he descended to the surface like a soldier. There were logical reasons why they'd arranged it that way, but it was awkward to know how to address him, her superior and sovereign who would be fighting on the ground under her supervision. She wondered if Vader's interactions with Tarkin, before they were co-Emperors, had been like this. If that was where their strange, switching-prone dynamic with each other had come from. She didn't think she got off on it the way Tarkin did.

"If Palpatine's not on a ship," she mused aloud, "then I'll still be handling the ships. In a way it's good to know in advance whom we'll be facing." When they reached Exegol, Vader would be with General Veers' forces elsewhere on the _Executor,_ preparing to deploy to the surface, rather than staying on the bridge where he could respond fully to the sort of things that happened on bridges. A homegrown Exegol fleet might not recognize Vader anyway, but a man like Rax certainly would. "Do you have any message for Rax that you'd like to record, my lord? To put the fear of force into them."

Vader considered it a second or two. "Yes. I will give one."

"Thank you, my lord. Have you sensed anything else of tactical value?"

"Not yet. But I will remain in radio contact, or Neap will."

She gave him a curt nod, and he turned and walked off.

Vader was the key to this mission. Vader would be the one dealing with Palpatine and whatever this ghost was, doing whatever violent mysticism was necessary to snuff them both out. Vader's goals were their true operational objective; Daala's role was to protect and support him from above. The arrival of Rax's faction didn't narrow down the options very much. When they arrived, she might face only a single squadron smaller than hers, or a vastly larger fleet - or anything in between. Whatever she faced, she would deal with them.

No one was ever ready. Her previous deployments had taught that lesson well enough. But whatever should happen in Exegol's sky, it would be Daala's battle, and she planned to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have 100% not read any of the books that contain Brierly Ronan or Rae Sloane (or Gallius Rax, who will probs get a speaking role next chapter), because I am the lazy kind of fan who would rather just glance in the Wookieepedia every so often than stop my frenetic writing to read more tie-in books, so I am just wildly making things up that they would say based on vague fanlore and any errors are 100% on meeeee.
> 
> (...For that matter, I also haven't played "Jedi: Fallen Order," though I've heard good things. Like I said. LAAAAAZY! You can go ahead and mock me for it. I have, however, read one (1) Daala book.)
> 
> Also I did not make up the Death Star prototype! It's totes a thing that was in the Maw Installation in Legends. Seemed like a waste to leave it moldering there.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader and Daala arrive on Exegol and confront their foes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I don't know what this is, but I know I'm gonna invade the hell out of it" - Imperial military doctrine, probably
> 
> Brace yourselves for the new few chapters, 'cause here's where the Sith Shit Starts To Go Down :D

Daala knew that, as they approached Exegol, everything would start to happen very fast. She was alert. She was focused. She was ready. The accretion disks that hid their destination curled so tightly around the _Executor_ that it seemed to be pushing through fiery jelly. Daala heard worried murmurs from the bridge officers, but they had their wayfinder, and they had to trust that everything would hold steady.

"Scanners are picking up something, sir," said Captain Piett. There was so much interference in this region - electromagnetic, gravitational, and otherwise - that their scanners might not show their destination until moments before they arrived. "Size of a planet. Mass of a planet. Almost certainly, actually, a planet-"

And then they burst out of the tightest part of the flames, into a small clear area, smaller than the one in which the Maw Installation floated. There was a planet below them, gray and stormy and sunless: perhaps an escapee from a sun that had been sucked into one of the nearby singularities, orbiting the Maw Cluster's center at a miraculous gravitationally stable point, kept just warm and bright enough for life by the chaotic flames. Daala did not see Rax's fleet, not in that first instant.

"Confirmed, sir, we have a visual on the planet."

"Atmosphere looks breathable, sir," said an officer at another scanning station. "High in particulate matter and in static electricity, but the baseline is a standard oxygen-nitrogen mix. Ground should be solid, but there's a lot of interference, it's hard to quite-"

"Enemy Destroyers at three point eight, sir," another officer announced.

Daala saw them now: five Star Destroyers, just as Ronan had warned her. _Imperial_ -class, not any of the stranger things they'd suspected Palpatine was building. They were about a third of the way around the planet from here, but she could see their engines flare as they shifted position, preparing to investigate the newcomer squadron.

"Signal from General Veers, sir. Landing party is prepared to launch. He says Emperor Vader senses what part of the planet has what he's looking for, so they can land now without further scanning."

Piett looked up. "There's too much interference down there, sir. Tight band comms signals should mostly function, but other instruments won't. Even if they can land, they won't be able to get back up again without a beacon to follow."

"Set up a navigation beacon from the _Executor_ ," Daala instructed. " _Avenger_ and _Tyrant_ , take your positions. Ask General Veers if Emperor Vader is willing to hold until the beacon's in place." She would have preferred _tell them to hold_ but Vader was, of course, her superior.

"Yes, sir" - this was a fourth officer, because scanning and beacon-sending were two different stations.

"There's a lot of gravitic instability too, sir," said the officer in charge of sublight navigation. "The stable pocket Exegol occupies is really quite small. Our intertial dampeners and stabilizers are keeping us in a comfortable orbit, and I assume the same goes for the enemy ships, but without stabilizers, anything further up than the edge of the atmosphere risks being drawn into one of the black holes."

"Acknowledged." They'd target the enemy's stabilizers first if it came to open battle, then. The Death Star prototype had simple stabilizers, but they weren't well-protected; neither were any of its other essential parts, so the tactical considerations there were largely the same as before.

And a fifth officer, this one a younger commander, his nails bitten down from the anxiety of traveling so close past such a deadly set of gravity wells. "The enemy ships are hailing, sir. It's Rax's ship."

"Broadcast the message that Emperor Vader recorded," she ordered. "All channels."

The image of Vader shimmered to life before her - as it would, if their comms functioned properly, to every ship in Rax's fleet. As many officers as possible should see this, not just Rax. The aim was to demoralize them, after all.

"Admiral Rax," said Vader. "This is your Emperor speaking - your true Emperor. Your quest for the soul of a dead man has led you nowhere. In one week, your fleet has been cut to a fraction of its size. No doubt that is why you have fled here, in a vain attempt to regroup where you believe no one can follow. But I am your master's heir, and I can follow anywhere he leads you. Stand down and let me conduct my business on Exegol, and I _may_ spare your men. I may even let you surrender. Resist or interfere and be destroyed. You served my master long enough to know what I am capable of. Today of all days, I am in no mood for mercy."

The recording winked out. More lights were winking on at stations across the bridge, too many to keep track of if the officers hadn't kept up with their brisk announcements.

"Beacon is ready, sir."

"Veers' ships are following the beacon signal and launching, sir."

Daala couldn't see them from here - the bridge tower was at the very top of the _Executor_ , and the ships carrying Vader and Neap and the 501st Legion would spill from the hatches in its underside. If she craned her neck downward she might see the cloud of TIE fighters that accompanied them, but there was no need to distract herself like that. " _Avenger_ and _Tyrant_ , move to cover the ground invasion force. Rest of the squadron, defensive formation." They'd already talked over this part of the plan; if Rax's ships got close, those two Destroyers would provide covering fire. Rax wouldn't be allowed into range to shoot the transport ships or to bombard their positions. If the two fleets engaged in open battle, Death Squadron would probably win, but it was more important to clear the way for Vader than to fight.

"Ground force is making the descent, sir."

" _Avenger_ is in position, sir" - this over comms, from Captain Needa, who commanded the ship.

" _Tyrant_ in position."

A new light blinked, bright and more insistent than before, at the comms station. "Sir, Rax is hailing us again."

Vader had provided the opening salvo, but it remained to her and Rax to fight the next portion of the battle, with words, before the part with the explosions started. Daala squared her shoulders. "Let him through."

*

General Veers had prepared a force for full-scale ground invasion. No one knew what resistance they'd meet on the surface; no one knew if there would be resistance at all. Until about a minute ago, no one had even been completely sure that there would be a surface to deploy on - which was why they had also been stocked with equipment for the alternatives, such as hull-penetrating explosives. Veers and his walkers would clear the surrounding area, creating a comfortable perimeter around Vader and Neap and the special platoon of troopers who would accompany Vader directly.

Those troopers and walkers were in various transports now, making their way to the surface under Death Squadron's cover. Vader in his TIE Advanced x1 prototype streaked down through the sky at their side. Somewhere close by, Neap in her own fighter was doing much the same. He ought to be able to feel her presence. He ought to attend to his TIE fighter's comms, which crackled with static, but which also burst with chatter from Veers and the lesser officers nearby, matching their route to the _Executor_ 's beacon, alerting each other of obstacles, correcting their course.

He ought to feel all these things, but in truth he didn't feel much, except for the planet below him and the ghost buffeting his mind. Two hungry presences which drowned out everything else, like the blast of sound from a ship's engines. Like the exact polar opposite of a blinding light.

Vader was used to living on top of a Dark Side node on Mustafar, a place whose very rocks burned with pain and rage. He had explored Sith temples that seemed to call to him specifically, in tones even the will of a Sith could not ignore. This was worse. The black holes in the sky were howling pits of hunger, immeasurably deep and vast. Made of desperate, hopeless, painful cravings, bigger than stars, that would never be satisfied. Exegol had taken form between their jaws, full of its own subtle powers, but so far from hope or comfort that the terms were meaningless here.

Palpatine's presence in the Force had felt like smoke, a choking wrongness that seeped in through the smallest crack. Exegol's whole atmosphere felt like that. It curdled with smog and it crackled with lightning. Yet Exegol was not beholden to anything's hunger. Born to a cluster of undead suns, twisted by forces that could do nothing but devour, it had survived by cultivating a hunger of its own. The Sith Empire could not have helped being drawn to a place like this.

_This is the strongest Dark Side nexus in the galaxy,_ the ghost explained, as if Vader couldn't have worked that out on his own. He could not see the ghost, but he could hear its voice and feel it pressing in around him. He had constructed barriers around his mind as best he could, and the ghost could not reach in to possess him. But those barriers did not make it go away, any more than shouting _no_ in his dreams. _Can you feel the beauty in it?_

_No,_ Vader mentally growled. There was no beauty in a thing like this.

_The Jedi thought they destroyed this place. In their compassion, they killed its children, salted its fields and erased its very memory from the world - the better to save others from us, of course. But dark calls to dark. Every Sith Master since Bane has sooner or later found their way here. Willingly or not. Whether their own master bothered to tell them or not. So now, you, too, find your way. To where I am waiting. This is your destiny._

From his dreams, Vader only remembered snatches of words. But he was awake now, and now this ghost would not shut up. It was fitting, of course, that Palpatine would be as given to monologues in death as in life.

_But, my boy, haven't you guessed by now? I am not Sheev Palpatine. That is the name of a child born some mere sixty years before your Empire rose. I am older than that by far. I am what is passed down from master to apprentice. I am what keeps the Sith Order in existence. I am all the Sith, and I will have you._

"No," said Vader aloud, his hands tightening on the controls.

It would not have him. But he could see, in his mind's eye, how it intended for that to work. It was all too easy to imagine that this ghost had possessed Palpatine before him, and Darth Plagueis before that, and on and on, back through time. It was Darth Bane's consciousness, wearing all those faces, obliterating the people they'd been before they rose to the rank of Master. Or perhaps something even older, something that had possessed Bane, too.

Vader had often thought, looking at Palpatine's unshielded mind, that it must have once reached some sort of critical mass. Like those black holes in the sky, which had once been healthy suns, until they grew too large and ate themselves from the inside. Palpatine's mind had grown so full of hate that it had collapsed in on itself. Everything in that mind, except for its endless well of cackling, conniving hate, had been obliterated long before he and Vader met.

But perhaps what he'd seen was not Sheev Palpatine's hate at all. Only the hate of the thing that possessed him. Maybe Vader had never known the real Sheev Palpatine, the child drawn willingly or otherwise into Darth Plagueis's orbit. Maybe that boy had vanished from the world the day he killed his master. And the Sith Lord that Vader swore himself to serve, years later, had been only this ghost all along.

Vader could almost feel pity for Palpatine, if that was so. Almost.

_What do you think you are preparing to do, my boy? Kill me? I have told you already that I cannot be killed._

"You are a liar," Vader growled. He would be a fool if he believed anything this ghost said, ever again.

There was a crackle over the comms, and he realized he had said those words aloud. "Everything okay, my lord?" said Neap's voice.

"The Force is strong here," said Vader, mortified. Everyone in the entire squadron had heard him. "There are voices. It is not a safety concern." He flicked a switch on the TIE's controls and turned off his microphone.

_You know better than to think you can kill me,_ said the ghost, unperturbed. Vader was beginning to feel the planet's cracked surface looming up close by, though his sensors couldn't see it yet. _Even if there was a way to kill me, you don't have a real reason to believe that the mechanisms for it exist here. You are drawn here for another reason. Search your feelings. You can sense it, my boy - your true destiny. Can't you?_

Vader did not need to search his feelings. They were full and clear already, a killing rage that had been denied its target for so long. He would meet his target down on the surface - of that, he was certain. He need not know the mechanisms yet. He would find them, and the Sith would be destroyed.

*

Gallius Rax was tall and thin, with a long and weathered face, wearing a white uniform reminiscent of Daala's own, but with the addition of a long, red cape. Despite the seeming vanity, he stood in an oddly unassuming pose as he shimmered to life facing Daala. As if they were only meeting to discuss politics in some quiet library somewhere. This wasn't the kind of haughty sabacc face that Daala had learned from Tarkin, but she knew it served a similar purpose. It was just as much of a mask.

"Admiral Daala," he said in a tone of mild surprise. "Or Grand Admiral now, is it? I must admit I'd expected to speak to Lord Vader."

"That's _Emperor_ Vader to you. As he just said, he's attending to business of his own here."

"Ah. Well, he's not the Emperor yet. He's on one of those landing craft that you just launched, no doubt. Is Governor Tarkin here with you? That would make things very tidy. Your full triumvirate, as it were."

" _Emperor_ Tarkin is on Coruscant, administrating the galaxy," Daala said archly. She wondered what Rax had meant by the word _yet._ "I'm not interested in opening fire yet, Admiral Rax, but if you'd like speak to me in the meantime, you could start by using the proper titles."

They were not, of course, going to let each other peacefully fly away. Vader's mission was the priority here, and Daala wouldn't let her ships be drawn away from their defensive position above him. But eventually, either Rax would attack, or Rax would surrender, or Rax would make a suicidal attempt to push past her and flee - or Vader would return to the _Executor_ , which would mean _her_ side was free to attack. The only way she'd retreat from here, without Rax dead or imprisoned by her hand, would be if reinforcements arrived on Rax's side with overwhelming force. And even then, she was willing to take heavy losses to safeguard Vader's own escape.

But Rax hadn't attacked yet, and that was intriguing.

"My apologies, Grand Admiral." Rax shrugged carelessly. "I'm not really an admiral, you know. I prefer the title of Counselor. I'm not much that would impress you, except that I happen to have been judged trustworthy, and thus entrusted with certain plans. You understand."

He was obviously stalling. The landing party was on its way to the surface regardless, and Rax wasn't trying to stop it. Nor had his fleet moved closer, though most of the ships had turned to assume a defensive formation, mirroring hers. One of the five hadn't, which was interesting. Damaged, or perhaps demoralized as Daala had intended: it would hardly be the first time that an otherwise competent crew had frozen up and refused to fight Darth Vader.

The question, then, was why the rest of them delayed. Option one: some greater force was on its way, capable of destroying Death Squadron both in the air and on land, and Rax was buying time until it arrived. Option two: there was no such force; he only didn't want to admit yet that he was, in fact, standing down. Or searching for some escape route, which was an acceptable variant.

Option three: they both knew that this would be decided, at its deepest level, by their forces on land. And Rax wasn't worried about how that would go. Because Vader, down there, was walking into a trap.

Behind her back, too low for the holoprojector to pick it up, Daala was communicating to the rest of the bridge using hand signals. These were a standard Imperial code, which the officers nearest to her would pick up and pass along. _Scan them,_ she signaled now. They might as well use this pause to their advantage. There would likely be weak or damaged points in Rax's ships by now. Or there might be secret weapons - which Daala would prefer to know about in advance. Rax's ships were undoubtedly already scanning hers back, or would soon, but Death Squadron had fewer secrets to give.

In the meantime, she would keep him talking. "Plans to resurrect Emperor Palpatine, you mean."

"In part. Greejatus told you, I presume."

"Emperor Vader," she said, making her voice deliberately harsh and blunt, "was always more powerful than Palpatine. Your so-called Ruling Council won't last long against him. He'll destroy whatever it is you're using to bring Palpatine back, and he'll murder whoever it is that's been helping you. And when he returns to us victorious, Counselor Rax, you'd better be prepared to recant and bow down to him as the emperor he is."

"Ah. I'm afraid you're mistaken, Grand Admiral," said Rax, in those same disarmingly soft tones. Daala suppressed any expression of victory. He'd taken the bait. Men like Rax could never resist the opportunity to explain to a woman why she was wrong. "Well. Partly mistaken, at least. You see, there are aspects of this plan that even the Ruling Council doesn't fully appreciate. The ceremony likely isn't yet complete, if Vader's down there already. He'll have the opportunity to disrupt it, and I have no doubt he'll do so violently. If you aren't paying attention, you could mistake that for victory. But the trouble with the Sith, the trouble that I don't think either you nor Emperor Tarkin fully understands - the truth that I'm not sure even Vader understands yet - is that the Sith aren't merely a military threat. They've become something more like a law of the universe. Shooting them down won't have the effect you think it will."

_It's a trap,_ Daala signaled to the crew. She had to trust that they'd find some way to get that message down to Vader. She kept her face perfectly still, affecting haughty disbelief. "I don't understand."

"What happens when you send a Sith apprentice to kill a Sith master, Grand Admiral? Surely Vader's told you that."

"My understanding is that, if the apprentice succeeds, he becomes the new master."

"Mm. Quite." Rax clasped his own hands behind his back. He looked genial and almost sad, as if he were explaining the unfortunate harsh truths of the world to a favored student. "But Sith master is not simply a title. It's a transformation. And this planet, the hidden world of the Sith, is where that transformation occurs. Tell me, Grand Admiral, in your best case scenario - if Emperor Vader returns to you victorious - do you know what he will have become? Do you even know what side of this little aerial battle he'll be on?"

"Emperor Vader will not betray us," she said hotly. "He would never betray Emperor Tarkin."

But on the inside, she felt the first real gnawings of doubt. Just hours ago Vader had accused Tarkin of being a manipulator just like Palpatine. He had feared that he didn't know whom he was loyal to, or if those loyalties were really his own. He'd had a long list of Tarkin's supposed crimes against Daala, and no doubt he had an even longer list of crimes against himself. She had wondered, just hours ago, if Vader would let Palpatine's Empire keep existing at all.

And that was Vader as himself; that was what Vader thought of things without being possessed by any ghost. If the ghost _was_ real, if it did take him over in the way that he feared, then who knew what he would feel loyal to?

"You have to hope so, I suppose," said Rax. "But I believe you've discovered the question that comes sooner or later to most women in positions like yours. At times like these you have to ask yourself, Grand Admiral: are you sure that you haven't bet your life on the wrong man?"

*

The surface of Exegol was rocky and barren, covered over in those gray smoggy clouds. Lightning flashed constantly, accompanied by a low, uneven, continuous roll of thunder. The suffocating feel of the Dark Side in the air was even worse here, and it took effort for Vader to press on despite it, to trust that the air being pushed in and out of his lungs was the good, filtered air that his respirator always drew in, and not poisonous smoke.

Vader disembarked from his TIE fighter and strode out immediately, not bothering to wait for Neap and the troopers. He had landed, as his instincts demanded, next to a towering structure that jutted from the ground. He had faintly seen signs of settlement in the distance - something that looked like shipyards cut into the ground, and small low buildings that might have been where people lived. But this edifice dwarfed all of them, and the land immediately around it was swept clean of any other signs of life. It was a trapezoidal shape many stories high, widest at the top, and its lowest story was an overhang like the one near the entrance of Vader's own fortress. People could walk into this building but only by walking underneath it, letting the heavy stones hang precariously above their heads.

It was either a Sith temple or something like one. It called to Vader in the way Sith temples had before. Most temples required a master and apprentice to enter as a pair, but this one gave Vader a distinctly different feeling. It was his, and his specifically. It awaited him, gaping open like the arms of a horrific lover, and he was to enter alone.

Vader's ghost had gone quiet, but he could still feel it around him, taut and alert with anticipation.

" _Executor_ to Emperor Vader," said Piett's voice, crackling over the comms. "Recommending extreme caution. This appears to be a-"

Vader impatiently turned his comm link off.

He strode underneath the overhang. It was curiously unguarded; there were no people in sight. The temple's upper trapezoidal shape was held in place by some force field, about ten feet above the ground. Walking through its shadows, he soon came to a chasm deeper and darker than the rest. A simple lift platform, little more than a floating stone square, hovered at its edge and awaited him.

There was a clamoring of steps behind him - Neap and the troopers, jogging to catch up. The troopers in question were a score of elite fighters who had been selected to accompany Vader directly. The rest of the ground invasion force, General Veers and all those walkers he loved, would go into the surrounding area and form a perimeter so that no one could come up on them from behind. They had already started that work, Vader knew, though he hadn't bothered to wait and see it begin for himself. He waited by the lip of the chasm long enough to hear Neap's greeting, urgent and slghtly breathless.

"Lord Vader," she said as she reached his side. "You turned off your comms. Grand Admiral Daala's in parley with Admiral Rax, and she's getting intel. There's some ceremony going on in here right now, but it's a trap."

"It is of no concern. I have walked into traps before."

Neap's expression said that she'd seen that happen, and seen how easily Vader prevailed regardless, but she still wasn't happy. "Okay. Orders, my lord?"

He turned, addressing both her and the troopers. "Follow me, but at a distance. Do _not_ allow yourselves to be seen until I am."

Without waiting for confirmation, he stepped onto the platform, and it began its journey down.

The chasm was long and deep, and its stone walls were raggedly irregular. A gash like an injury, a cut impossibly far into the earth. Vader wondered idly if there would be lava at the bottom, but he didn't think so. He was very familiar with the feel of lava. Exegol felt like a world whose core had burned to dead cold cinders long ago.

Strangely, the light down here continued to flicker. As if this planet was so bathed in unstable electromagnetic forces that they gave off lightning even underground. The suffocating thickness in the air was worse the lower he went. The ghost silently urged him on, straining toward their destination.

_This is your source,_ Vader thought in its direction. He knew better than to speak aloud this time. _This is where you are strongest, is it not? But it is also the thing that gives you power. I can cut off that power here. I can destroy you._

All he heard in response was a derisive cackle.

At length the corridor opened out into a large room in which some sort of biological experiment seemed to have taken place. Incubation tanks were placed here and there, standing on plinths like sculptures in the vast stone space. Vader slowed his pace, taking it in. These must be the small-scale specialized incubators Daala had mentioned. Attempts at growing Palpatine's preferred new body, though Vader was not sure why there were so many.

He could see perhaps half a dozen of them in his line of sight. The life forms growing within them were still very small. Embryos and fetuses, nothing more. Most looked strange, even by the standards of such things. Visibly misshapen, as though the genetic experiments that produced them had gone terribly wrong. The closest one did not even look like a thing that could be viable, only a tangle of arms growing out of each other without a torso or head to connect to.

None of them were alive. Vader could feel that about them. They had died before their unnatural births, or perhaps they had never quickened in the first place.

From somewhere further into the cavernous room, Vader heard voices. Neap had mentioned some ceremony, but this wasn't the chanting or the oratory that he would have expected. It sounded like a small knot of people arguing, chaotic, distraught.

He concentrated a moment and made himself more difficult to detect. This was a Dark Side technique. The darkness was excellent at clouding minds and hiding things from view. Many of the subtlest Sith could make themselves invisible, not by actually changing the movement of light and sound, but by redirecting nearby minds to other concerns. People would simply forget to look or listen.

Vader had always been rather bad at this technique. It wasn't from lack of power, but from the fact that he started at a disadvantage. It was in Vader's nature to draw attention, with his hulking form, his dark armor, and his loud inhuman breath. But the Dark Side was extremely strong on Exegol. If he drew on it fully, and made himself quiet, and was _very_ careful, he suspected he could do it here.

He flicked a couple of switches on the panel at his abdomen, turning off his respirator and the indicator lights that normally shone from his form. Vader could be silent this way when he chose to be. It had the obvious drawback that, with his respirator turned off, he couldn't _breathe._ But the discomfort of suffocation was only slightly worse than the choking feel of the Dark Side-laced air around him, and he had endured it before. He could hold his breath this way for a couple of minutes, if necessary, before he risked unconsciousness. That would be plenty of time.

He edged towards the sound of the voices, stepping carefully and slowly, making no sound.

"-promised us," said one of the voices, a man. Old, from the sound of it. Faintly familiar. "That Emperor Palpatine would return in the flesh. That the mechanisms for doing it were here-"

"They are," said another voice, a woman's, harsher and more robust, cutting him off. "Such as they are, at least. Lord Sidious came closer to solving the mystery of bodily immortality than any before him. Closer than Plagueis. If he had only a little more time to perfect the technique, another year or two before his first life was cut short, he might have succeeded."

_And now we can try again,_ the ghost agreed, whispering in Vader's ear. _Again and again, generation after generation. Those men cannot understand that I was never really gone._

"But he promised." Another old man, whose voice had risen to a whine. A noise came, a thumping that Vader could barely distinguish from the constant thunder, but this one shook the walls. "Listen to that. This planet is under attack, and you mean to tell me that we don't even have what we were _promised-_ "

"You should not have put so much stock in Lord Sidious' promises," said the woman, who sounded like she was rapidly losing patience. "He told you what he meant to accomplish. He knew he might fail. You should have planned for that, too."

Vader crept closer. He could see the figures of them now, though he remained in the shadows. Past the incubators, this room broadened out into a stage of some sort, though Vader could not yet see the whole thing clearly - only a wide, chasm-riddled space and a hint of a vast gallery beyond it. There were a handful of men there, the remainder of the Ruling Council that hadn't already been captured or killed. Vader recognized Kren Blista-Vanee, Sate Pestage, and Yupe Tashu - all cronies and yes-men of Palpatine's. All expendable. He would take pleasure in killing them soon.

_This is it,_ the ghost keened as he took in the sight. _This is where it will happen._

The woman was a person he'd never seen before. She was old as the men, really a crone, but she stood taller than any of them: almost as tall as Vader, though narrower in the shoulders. Her hair was pure white and close-cropped to her head. She wore a black dress in a thick fabric which was modest in its cut, yet grand in its trappings, shrouding her body as if she had risen fully formed from the shadows of the floor. This was accented with several glinting items that Vader hesitated to call _jewelry:_ that was too frivolous a word. They were more like the circlet Tarkin wore. Blood-red gems glittered at the woman's waist and throat, and another was affixed to her forehead by a band more delicate and grander than the Imperial diadem. The settings of these gems were a ghostly, moon-white metal, shaped into eldritch symbols Vader vaguely recognized from other Sith temples, or from the very oldest books.

Vader had never seen a Sith priestess. Those were relics of an age thousands of years gone, an age before Darth Bane, when the Sith Empire held congregations large enough for priests to tend to. But this woman here looked like one, recreated as closely as possible from the Sith Empire's ashes. Power radiated from her; she was not as strong as Vader or Palpatine, not even as strong as most of the Jedi, but it was enough for ceremony. More than enough to command the allegiance of these weak, non-Force-sensitive men.

"Are you sure that it failed?" Yupe Tashu pressed - he seemed to be doing the best job, of the three of them, of keeping his composure, but even he was visibly alarmed. "You've double checked all of the clone embryos, and none of them-"

"None of them possess Lord Sidious' consciousness, no. Whatever he meant to do to transfer himself to the new body, it failed."

But it had not failed, Vader thought. They had all only misunderstood. Palpatine had tried to resurrect himself in a body of his choosing. But it was not really Palpatine who had done it - it was the ghost, which had possessed Palpatine ever since Plagueis's death. If resurrection in the flesh was not yet perfected, it still had possession to fall back on. As it had done, all the way back to Darth Bane, or even before.

Sate Pestage, the one who'd whined, let his voice rise to an even more desperate pitch. "Then this was all for nothing? The one true Emperor of the whole galaxy is - gone? Forever?"

The priestess turned her head, and although Vader thought no one had noticed his presence, she calmly locked eyes with him. She smiled, slightly and triumphantly, the smile of a cat whose prey had wandered into pouncing range.

"No," she said. "The true Emperor is right here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's okay, vader, we all forget to mute our mic while yelling at invisible ghosts in a zoom meeting sometimes


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daala goads Rax into battle, and Vader faces a kind of temptation he never imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so this is where the Sith Shenanigans transition from "arguably supported by canon if you tilt your head and squint" to "INVENTING WILD COSMIC SHIT BECAUSE i FELT LIKE IT, WHEEEEE"
> 
> but hopefully in a fun way!

Vader knew the cue for a dramatic entrance when he heard one.

In one fluid motion, he Force-switched his respirator and his indicator lights back on, and he drew his lightsaber. He prowled a few steps forward into the full view of the room. The relief of filtered air returned to his lungs as his heavy breath echoed in the cavernous space.

This, somehow, was a throne room. The space where the Ruling Council and the priestess stood was a sort of wide stage, and in pride of place in the stage's center sat an empty chair far grander than those in the Imperial Palace. It was easily ten feet high, its back jagged and spiked; it could not have been mistaken for anything but a throne. Past the stage, there was a structure like a vast amphitheatre, full of worshippers in the black hooded robes of Sith acolytes.

Vader had always been told that the Sith Order, after Darth Bane, was a religion for only two people. Yet Palpatine had skirted the rule at every turn. There was always some blithe excuse for why the Inquisitors, for example, weren't _real_ Sith. Vader had never loved Palpatine, but he had felt a little like a jilted spouse at times, watching the way Palpatine gathered his little groups of newer, shinier learners instead of attending to him.

Palpatine had wanted Vader's undivided attention despite this, of course. But Vader had seldom granted it. He'd had Tarkin and his other casual lovers. He'd had his little hobbies, like droid-building. Tarkin, in turn, had Daala. Maybe that was just the way it went. Maybe no one really ever stayed faithful to anything. But Palpatine was the only one of them who'd lied about it.

This vast amphitheatre, this public display - this was the Rule of Two's polar opposite. It belonged to Palpatine; Vader could feel that about it. But while he lived, even while the ghost that possessed him haunted Vader, Palpatine had never breathed a word of it at all.

The priestess didn't move a muscle as Vader approached. But the three old men of the Ruling Council stumbled backwards, stammering.

"Lord - er - Emperor Vader! We didn't expect to see you here-"

"We were only carrying out the will of your master-"

"You don't understand what's happening here-"

_Neither do they,_ whispered the ghost.

Vader made a fist and raised the three of them up by their necks. He choked the life from them quickly. When their extinguished corpses fell to the floor, he stepped forward and brought his lightsaber up to the priestess. Its blade stopped an inch from her neck.

She had not moved at all during this process, save perhaps for a brief flick of the eyes. Her expression, looking back at him, was as cool and composed as if he'd walked into the room normally.

"Welcome," she said, her voice carrying effortlessly across the whole cavernous space. Her teeth were filed to tiny points. "Chosen One."

The Dark Side was stronger here than Vader had ever felt before. He thought he had felt a pulse of power as the Ruling Council's lives left their bodies. Not merely the usual rush of dispensing with an enemy so easily - Vader was familiar with that. This was something else. As if the very energies of this place rushed into him, with each cruelty, and made him stronger.

That level of power felt like standing on a precipice. Something about this place, the funnel shape of it, amplified cruelties. There were so many souls in that gallery before him, a crowd fixed on him like the crowd at his coronation. He could kill them all if he chose. Vader was already death incarnate; it would be easy. He could choose more death and more power, more, more, _more,_ making himself something like a god.

But Vader did not think that would end well. He remembered the feel of Palpatine's mind, like a hate-fueled star that had collapsed in on itself, the weight of its power obliterating whatever had been there before.

That was how the ghost would get him. If he gave in to this, he would be lost.

"You," Vader ordered, "will explain yourself. Now."

The priestess regarded him coolly. There were plenty of people in the Empire who liked to act unbothered by Vader's belligerence. Tarkin had made a sexual fetish out of it, egging Vader on in cool and superior tones as Vader hurt him. Daala had taken Tarkin's lessons so far as to refuse to show emotion at all. There were many others like that, but Vader sensed the fear in their minds regardless.

This priestess was not hiding her fear; she had none. And Vader had encountered this type of person before, too. The kind who didn't have to hide their more vulnerable feelings, because they simply didn't feel much of anything.

Such people were not necessarily more dangerous than others, but they required wariness. Their responses to Vader's usual tactics could be unpredictable. They could not be intimidated except by the starkest facts of consequence. They could lie or betray, if it seemed good to them, without the smallest ripple of remorse - and, thus, without giving any sign.

"Yes," she said, smiling slightly. "I should like to do that."

*

Rax had switched off his comms, and Daala had returned her focus to the immediate business of managing Death Squadron. Rax had unnerved her, but she knew how to compensate. Vader was already on the ground, and there was nothing more she could do to affect his situation. So the logical course was to trust Neap to keep the eye on him she'd promised; to keep the lines of communication open; and, in the meantime, to attend to the things she _did_ control.

Rax's fleet had not yet moved any closer. No doubt he was performing activities similar to hers, taking what covert actions he could, and preparing.

"General Veers to _Executor,_ " came the General's voice over tight-beam comms, crackling with static. "We've established the perimeter. Resistance is minimal so far; just some local militia, the kind more equipped for putting down their own civilians than for fighting AT-ATs. As bleak as this planet might look, I don't think it has any tradition of large-scale surface war."

Daala supposed that made sense. Who could have made war on this planet when it was so well hidden away? If its own population was small enough to be organized under one administration, then there might have been no real military threats for thousands of years. Not since that ancient war with the Jedi that Vader and Palpatine were still angry about.

"Good work, General. Hold your position. Have you seen any evidence of shipyards or hangars?"

"Yes, sir. Some construction docks that look sunk into the ground. The early report is that there is a very large fleet under construction here. Hundreds of modified _Imperial_ -class Destroyers, but most of them not even close to flight-ready, and not much crew in sight."

Could it be that easy? Palpatine had been building a fleet, yet maybe Vader had killed him before it was ready. Maybe his grand re-invasion of the galaxy was simply not ready yet. It had been meant to take place decades in the future, after all. "What do you mean by _modified?_ "

"Some unusual weaponry, sir. My scouts are still looking into it."

"Thank you, General. Focus on the shipyards; I'll scan the rest of the planet from up here. If you can bring me back one of those weapons to study, I want it."

"Yes, sir."

She waited as Rax's ships continued to float placidly in a defensive formation opposite hers. There continued to be no sign from Neap or Vader.

"Definitely a temple here," had been Neap's last message, over a comm so staticky as to be barely intelligible. "Vader's gone in and we're following. Probably won't get reception inside. See you later."

That had been at least fifteen minutes ago.

Daala had been keeping track of the time. Rax's forces could be waiting for her to lose patience and come after them, leaving Vader's position exposed. Or waiting for reinforcements to arrive, Veers' report had made her less worried about that. They might be arguing among themselves about what to do. After the losses they'd already taken in only a week, their morale could not be good.

Sooner or later, the prototype Death Star would arrive. It was unshielded. There was a good chance Rax's fleet would move to attack it: it was a demonstrable threat and all too easy to take down with a relatively small bombardment. Death Squadron could defend it, but it would be dicey. She would much rather rid herself of Rax's fleet before that happened - or establish to herself, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they wouldn't dare attack.

If she had guessed correctly how the prototype's engines would fare, if gravitational forces didn't simply tear it apart en route, then she had about twenty minutes.

" _Avenger_ and _Tyrant_ ," she commanded, making the decision. "Rejoin the defensive formation. _Executor_ will relieve you. _Executor_ , move into position to cover the ground force."

She watched as the ships obeyed, shuffling their positions. There was no movement from Rax's ships.

"All ships apart from the _Executor,_ " said Daala, "move to surround the incoming route. Blockade formation."

She'd included this option when she briefed the commanders. Death Squadron's five _Imperial_ -class destroyers, and the assortment of freighters and auxiliaries that went with them, assembled in a defensive shape around the place where the prototype would soon emerge. They spaced themselves out widely enough to give it room.

There was no mistaking a formation like that, nor the sheer size of the thing it was meant to defend.

Rax's flagship fired its engines. Several seconds later - long enough to reinforce Daala's suspicions about a lack of morale - two of his other ships moved to follow. Provoked by necessity, as they had not been by mere words. By the threat of larger war machines soon to arrive.

"Sir. Rax is hailing -" The officer stopped, looked down at his panel again. "No, he's stopped hailing, sir. All he said was, _I see what you did there._ "

"Death Squadron, hold your positions," Daala ordered. "Launch fighters. Comms, broadcast Emperor Vader's speech again, all channels. Prepare to open fire when your targets come in range."

The ships on both sides began to pour out screaming clouds of TIEs.

Without the _Executor_ 's direct involvement, the two sides should have been evenly matched. But Rax's flagship had broken out too far in front. The two ships beside it lagged slightly, following but fatally hesitant. A fourth had begun to follow, then stopped - perhaps a mutiny, or some other morale catastrophe. The seemingly damaged fifth ship had not moved at all.

Daala had made this gamble correctly. Rax believed in himself; no doubt he'd learned at Palpatine's feet all the reasons why his success was inevitable. Secret reasons, reasons only he could be trusted with. But his forces, not entrusted with such secrets, were too battered and demoralized to follow. And now he'd inadvertently exposed himself.

The _Executor_ took a few ion cannon potshots as the ships flew overhead, but it held its own position.

"Open fire," she ordered. "Breach the shields, then target the stabilizers."

One small fleet roared toward the other, laser fire beginning to flicker back and forth between the ships. Daala resisted the urge to smile. The blood in her veins was singing, at long last, with the heat of battle.

*

"Did your master ever tell you," asked the Sith priestess, with Vader's saber blade humming inches from her neck, "about the Sith Eternal?"

"No."

"Ah. Then we'll have to start from the beginning." Lightning flickered in every direction, one bolt after another, casting her face into a series of different stark strobes at different angles in rapid succession. "The very beginning. The Sith Empire, thousands of years ago."

There was a whisper from the crowd at the mention of the Sith Empire, some short ritual phrase in one of the Sith dialects. Vader could not fully make out the words - communal whispers tended not to be very distinct - but if they had simply repeated the words _the Sith Empire!_ ecstatically to themselves, he would not have been surprised.

"My master informed me that the Jedi wiped it out," he said. If the entire war with the Jedi that ended the Sith Empire was a lie, too, then Vader was going to _entirely_ fucking lose it.

"Oh, they did. More or less. But that's the thing about the Dark Side. It can't be killed forever, any more than you can kill gravity. Wherever there is light, there will be shadow. Something coalesced again out of the Sith Empire's ashes. And it did so here, where it would never be found - except by those who were meant to find it."

"I have landed on your world with a full ground invasion force," said Vader. "The citizens who pay you tribute are fleeing from their homes even now. Soon my forces will destroy this very temple. Tell me I was meant to find you."

_You know you were, my boy,_ whispered the ghost. _You know why._

Her smile widened very slightly. Vader suspected, but could not be sure, that she did not hear the ghost's words. "You were," she answered. "And they will destroy this temple only if you order it, Chosen One."

He jerked forward an inch with his lightsaber, making her tilt her head back. "Call me by my name."

She had moved far enough to avoid injury, but she had yet to blink or wince, or to display any feeling but keen, calm interest. "What name would that be?"

That brought him up short. What was his real name, deep down? Vader? _Anakin?_ Some third name, perhaps. Some made-up name like Neap's. But he did not know what that would be.

_Soon,_ said the ghost, hungrily circling his head. _Soon you will have no true name but mine._

He turned off his lightsaber and sheathed it. Lightning flickered through the room.

"Tell me why I am here," he said, "if you know so much. Tell me what this place is, and who you are."

"I am Xavine Zoare, High Priestess of the Sith Eternal," said the woman, straightening her posture with a concise movement like that of a snake. "The name matters less than the title does. We are not Sith Lords or Sith Ladies, not in the way that you and your master are. We exist to serve you. This full planet was chosen for that role, after the Jedi scoured everything else of value from its surface. We serve the master of the Sith in many varied ways, but in particular, we exist for initiatory rites. We have books recording each new master who has come to us in the past thousand years, the subtleties of their minds, the taxonomies and typologies of them. The techniques that may be necessary for each, to bring them willingly to the fullness of their power."

_She means_ my _power,_ the ghost whispered in Vader's ear. _Even a High Priestess does not know everything._

"Why should you have to initiate me? I already killed my master. I am already the new Master of the Sith." And he already had a ghost trying frantically to take over his mind. He should not need a special rite for the ghost to possess him. It had already been on the brink of doing that every night.

"And did your master teach you everything that you needed to know?" she countered. He fought the urge to recoil; she had struck close to home. This woman must have known Palpatine as her previous master; maybe Palpatine had already told her about Vader. Maybe Palpatine had complained to her how useless it was to bother explaining politics or strategy or true mysticism to such an unsubtle mind. "Of course not. You still have much to learn, Chosen One, only now you will learn it on your own, rather than being beholden to your master's design."

He did not feel deception in her mind, but with a mind like hers, he might never feel it; and surely this must be a lie. If he allowed this ghost to take him over, he would be _more_ beholden, not less. He would have no choices left for himself at all.

"And your own designs would be superior," Vader said, taking a step toward her. She stepped, not back, but sideways. He was abruptly unsure who was circling whom.

"Not mine. What you need to know after this, you will feel directly. The nexus of darkness in which this planet resides is the strongest in the galaxy. And a Sith Master, to claim the title, must be united with the darkness. Killing your master is only the first step: the sign to the universe that you have been made ready. This planet is its completion. You can feel it, can't you? How much power resides here. How much of it is yours for the taking."

Vader suppressed a shudder. He did feel it. He had felt it when he killed the Ruling Council, a power that could so easily flow through him. Like the power he already had, but more, _more._

Power that would destroy him, as it had destroyed Sheev Palpatine. Power that would burn out his mind to make space for the ghost to move in.

_Unlimited_ power.

"What use do I have for such power?" he asked, stalling. "I am already the emperor of the galaxy. I am already so fearsome that none can stand against me."

"Don't ask what use you have for it," said Zoare. She took another step, back and to the side, as the lightning flickered around her. "Ask what use the galaxy has for _you,_ Chosen One. What sort of universe would we have without the Dark Side? Nothing ever changing, no struggle or challenge, no mystery, no passion; no thought of the individual at all. No force of decay to clear the space from which new life can spring. The Dark Side is necessary. And in a galaxy where humans have tried for so long to deny the Dark Side, a Sith Master is necessary, too. A person who seeks their own power at the expense of all else, who embodies  the truths no one else will acknowledge. Who moves the darkness through his very being and makes it manifest, becoming its fleshly incarnation. A god, of sorts."

Vader thought he'd been circling her, slowly backing her up, but she'd maneuvered him so that he was now facing the throne. It loomed before him, a monstrous chair ringed by spikes like vast thorns, up on its dais of a dozen steps. It flashed in the room's uneven lights, demanding his attention. He did not like it. He did not like any of this.

"It is not about _your_ desires," Zoare continued. "It is greater than that. You are the chosen, not the chooser. You were shaped for this from childhood. It is your _destiny._ "

Vader had once been told, before he was Vader, that he had the power to become like a god. He remembered the beings of the world called Mortis, and how he'd been told he could command them. He _had_ commanded them, briefly. But he had not wanted that power then and he did not want it now. He did not want another destiny. He'd lived through enough of them.

He turned away from the throne.

"My master was the greatest manipulator who ever lived," Vader informed her. "He could tempt anyone to anything. I lack that talent, but I have seen how it is done. _You_ are unskilled. You have nothing I want and no threat with which to coerce me."

"Don't I?" she said, in soft, amused tones.

_She need not tempt you,_ whispered the ghost. _I will have you in the end, either way._

"Don't you want to purge the traces of your master from the galaxy?" Zoare murmured, stepping closer in behind him. "I've felt your hate for him. You want to tear down everything he built. But you took nearly a month to find this place. Surely you've had time to notice the difficulty of the task. It feels as though he's _in_ everything, doesn't it? Around every corner. Smirking at you from the faces you love. And surely it feels to you as though he's even stronger here."

Vader turned to face her, disturbed.  "And you propose to solve that," he said, "by ripping away all that makes me different from him. By making me destroy myself."

"Would you be destroyed?" Zoare shrugged carelessly. "There is a transformation that takes place. You become less of your old self, just as you did when you took the vows of an apprentice. But the transformation goes both ways. The Dark Side, throughout the galaxy, also becomes more like _you._ "

There was another chanted whisper from the crowd, one that Vader didn't understand at all.

"That cannot be."

"Search your feelings." She made an expansive gesture with one hand, like a lecturer inviting him to consider the stars. He was uncomfortably reminded that, although her eyes were fixed on him, she was also playing to the crowd. To her this would be a high like the one he'd felt at his coronation. Their rapt attention, their chanting, all of it fed her.

But Vader could not think about being fed by the energies around him, or his mental walls would falter. He would let it in without meaning to, this vast well of darkness, this power source too powerful even for him.

"Doesn't it feel like he's everywhere?" Zoare pressed. "Doesn't it feel like he's _here?_ Part of that is in your own mind, of course. But part of it is the connection he had with the Force. You are familiar with Lord Sidious' favorite tendencies. Long, elaborate betrayals. Corruption that goes unrecognized until it is far too late. Good people made to betray their own principles. All of these have been rife throughout the galaxy ever since Sidious took the throne. Much of it he engineered directly, but much he did not have to. Because he had been made one with the dark; so anyone who felt a call to the dark, to some greater or lesser degree, felt a call to his _kind_ of dark. Before him, in the Age of Plagueis, it was different. Fewer long disguises, fewer mind games, but more coldly rational tortures done in secret. More dark curiosities into the nature of things."

Vader did not want to search his feelings. But there was a terrible logic to this.

_Is it true?_ he asked the ghost. _When you have me, will it change you as much as it changes me?_

_In a way,_ said the ghost. _I have worn many faces._

"That was why Sidious wanted bodily immortality," said Zoare. "Some part of the master does pass on into the apprentice. Some aspect of his spirit, shaped by his own master, with which he shapes the next. But of course no true Sith would be satisfied with that. He wanted to remain himself, exactly as he was. He wanted the Age of Sidious to last forever. And, of course, he failed." She raised her eyebrows challengingly. "Unless you choose to walk away. Unless you let this citadel, and the mechanisms of the universe it upholds, remain in the shape he set them in. If you choose that, it could be the Age of Sidious for decades or centuries more, until some other challenger arrives to succeed where you failed. Wouldn't it be better to take it for yourself? To wipe the last traces him away in one fell swoop, and in their place, to create the Age of Vader."

The crowd did another of its short chants, and this time Vader understood it; he could recognize, after all, his own name. _The Age of Vader. The Age of Vader._

_But you will still belong to me,_ said the ghost.

"Think of it," Zoare insisted. "No more grooming the vulnerable, no more empty flatteries, only force. No more intricate webs enticing millions into sin, only death and rage. Doesn't that seem better to you? Cleaner? You already hold such power, Chosen One. Your age will be like no other we have ever seen."

Vader did not want this. He did not want to lose himself all over again. He would be not only be a monster, but the worst monster in the world. Until his injured body failed him at last, and the ghost passed on to a new form of monster, just as horrible in its own way, on and on forever.

Yet he could not deny he'd seen it, how the effects Palpatine had on the world seemed to persist. How his influence had corrupted everyone Vader cared for, too intricately interwoven with their natures to remove. Vader could change that. He had come here to defeat his master for good this time. Palpatine had lived so fully through his plots and his tricks. Vader could wipe that all out in a moment. He could rewrite the very laws of the universe, and those plots would wither in place. To make room for something just as evil, but much more to Vader's liking.

He would lose himself completely. Whatever emerged wearing his body when he was done, whatever unholy amalgam of himself and his ghost, it would not be the self Vader knew.

But it wasn't as though Darth Vader _liked_ himself.

"Yes," Zoare coaxed. "You see it, don't you?"

As Vader wavered, someone cleared their throat behind him.

He turned. Behind and to one side of the throne, at the edge of the chamber with all those incubator tanks, stood two neat lines of stormtroopers. Neap stood at the head of them, tossing her lightsaber's hilt idly from hand to hand.  "Am I interrupting anything?"

Vader had told her not to let herself be seen until he was, but of course he had become _extremely_ visible several minutes ago. He could not fault her timing.

"Not at all," said Zoare, answering for him. She half-circled Vader again. Her expression hadn't changed, but Vader had felt the first flicker of real emotion in her mind, a sort of urgency, as she reached to retake his attention. "You have friends, I see. Not all apprentices are allowed such a privilege. You value them. Yet you worry, when you see Sidious' remnants in their minds, that they are too far gone." Her nostrils flared, an animal smelling blood. "Think how you could expel his influence from them. Think how you could save them all."

But she had grown too reckless in her urgency. _That_ line of argument, _that_ word, was one step too far.

Vader lunged forward, igniting his saber again. Zoare dodged, but not nimbly enough. Her ankle turned under that long draping dress and she fell to her hands and knees.

He held the blade an inch from her skin, and she went still.  Vader's wavering was over. He knew now, absolutely and for certain, what kind of bargain this was.

"The Dark Side cannot save anyone," he growled. "I learned _that_ on my very first day."

He had knelt, nineteen years ago, weeping as he said his vows to his new master. He had known it was wrong. He had known he was losing himself. But anything, he told himself, any sacrifice was worth it to save Padmé and the child.

It had, of course, done the opposite.

The Dark Side lied. Anything bright and shining in it that tempted Vader, instead of making him want to run screaming, would always be a lie.

"Neap," he ordered. "Lead the troops. Destroy the incubators. Kill the worshippers here."

"Happy to, Lord Vader," said Neap. Her own saber whirred to life, the double blades emerging from the circular hilt and beginning to hypnotically spin. She barked a command , and the most elite troopers of the 501st legion marched forward.

Vader stayed focused on Zoare. He thumbed his saber off again and closed her in a Force-grip, squeezing her arms and legs tight to her body. He jerked her half-upright, so that she would see everything that occurred in that vast gallery. The cultists didn't seem to know what to do. Some turned this way and that, making clumsy overtures towards running; others remained staring at the stage, more fanatical than their fellows, inadvertently or deliberately blocking the way. This had all the makings of a massacre. The troopers might not have to even try.

"I will not kill you," Vader promised her. "Not yet. First you will see how I take this place apart. The Dark Side cannot be destroyed, but no hint of this temple or its rites will remain when I am through. I will make you watch as everything you have worked for becomes dust."

But there was no hint of horror or despair in Zoare's mind. As she watched the troopers wade in and open fire, as she listened to the crashing sounds of Neap with the incubators behind them, she smiled. There was nothing in her eyes, above those sharpened teeth, but feral joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #22 on the Evil Overlord List is relevant here: "I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head."


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daala makes progress in her battle against Rax. Vader's adventure, on the surface of Exegol, is not going as well as he'd hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _wheee watching the chapter count click up and up._ I said this was a two-act structure, but that is because I suck at knowing how many words anything will take; in retrospect it's clearly three. 10 chapters of Vader and Daala's arrivals in the new administration and Vader's subsequent breakdown; 10 chapters of everybody running around codependently trying to figure out how to stop Palpatine's plans; and 8 (?) chapters of the actual mission. Phew.
> 
> also I continue to have no idea how space battles work! :P

Daala paced up and down at the bridge's windows, fully subsumed in the thrill of war. Rax's three Destroyers, poorly coordinated, were no match for her blockade formation of five. The flagship's shields were already beginning to fail. Flame burst irregularly in the void around it, small and strange against the slower swirling flames of the Maw's sky. Flame, smoke, debris, laser fire and ion pulses. So much movement she could lose herself in it, ships swarming and banking and diving and dancing.

It had been _so_ long since she fought a proper battle like this.

She listened to her officers making their updates. She gave curt orders every minute or two. She was active, but she was only one part of the superorganism that fought this fight, a tiny capstone allowing thousands of equally tiny moving parts to coordinate and focus. That was the role of any good commander in a battle, and she reveled in it.

Rax's flagship was taking the brunt of Daala's defense. Death Squadron's ships hit it with one ion pulse, and another, and another, and then there was an unimstakable broken shimmer in the space around it. "Flagship's shields are down, sir."

"Concentrate fire on their stabilizers." The order was so obvious it was hardly necessary; she'd already mentioned that stabilizers would be the next step, and many of the nearby TIEs had already swarmed in to do so. But clear orders made people more eager, more sure of themselves. At Daala's command, many more fighters eagerly followed. The flagship's flank was nearly swallowed up in the cloud of small ships blasting back and forth, of smoke and flame.

"Rax is hailing, sir."

"Let him through."

Rax's hologram shivered into view before her. He looked more harried now. He was still affecting that air of humble poise, but there were cracks in it, a tension in his shoulders and his jaw. "Don't think you've won yet, Grand Admiral. I already told you I'm not much. Whatever happens to me, we all know-"

He stumbled suddenly, and the hologram shuddered, as the whole room he was in shook and began to tilt wildly to one side.

Simultaneously, in the window, there was a burst of flame larger than the others. "Confirmed hit on their stabilizers, sir."

_Press the attack,_ Daala signaled. She would not allow the enemy a moment to remedy the damage, not until this thing was won for sure.

"Why, Counselor Rax," she said to the hologram, refusing to crack a smile. "Have you bet your life on the wrong ship?"

There was another shake to the room and a burst of flame, and the hologram winked out into static.

"Lost the signal from Rax's flagship, sir," said an officer, as if that wasn't obvious. Still, she appreciated when people were thorough.

The flagship had begun to tilt visibly. It pitched upward, dragged towards the open mouths of the black holes. Flame and smoke bloomed from multiple wounds, surrounded by a dogged group of TIEs which continued to harry the ship in its death throes.

Of course, the rest of the battle had not ground to a halt just because the flagship was in trouble. Elsewhere, as Daala watched with half her attention, the other two active enemy ships were still attacking. But the blockade had held up well against them so far, and the flagship was the most important enemy. Daala could take these last few seconds to be sure.

She watched, breath bated, until the ship began to break apart. Cracks appeared in its hull, the whole bulk of it distorting, as it drifted nearer to the black holes' deadly gravity wells. Its engines fired, trying vainly to course correct, but it was too late. The whole battle was too high above the surface of Exegol, too close to the rest of the Maw, for any ship without stabilizers to withstand the terrain. A few escape pods fired uselessly from the bridge tower and elsewhere, only to be gobbled up even more quickly, their trajectories veering and arcing at into the round darkness of the nearest event horizon.

"Break off the attack on the flagship," she ordered. "It's done. Now we've got to send those other two where their master went."

The whole swarming dance shifted again. Daala could not afford to lose concentration; even without their leader, the other two ships would not necessarily be easy prey. The attack must not flag until it was done. But there were privileges to command. She permitted herself the luxury of watching, just for a few more seconds, as Rax's ship broke into fragments, and as those fragments, in turn, were swallowed. Daala had seen objects drawn into black holes before, but not anything near this size, not anything that she'd wished so fervently to send there. She permitted herself to memorize the details before she turned away.

*

In the flickering, lightning-lit gloom of the Sith Citadel, Vader's stormtroopers had entered the gallery. A first wave advanced up the aisles, raining blaster fire as they went; a second wave, close behind them, used their bayonets to take out any still-twitching bodies. A few Sith cultists had the presence of mind to stand and fight, but they were mainly unarmed, and the troopers were armored; even the most vicious knots of punching and grappling weren't much of a contest. Most of them fled, in a trampling panic, which made the troopers' jobs that much easier.

But Xavine Zoare, High Priestess of the Sith Eternal, forced to watch her congregation cut down before her eyes, only smiled.

"Yes," she purred, her nostrils flaring. "Good. Strike us all down."

Vader had met many forms of sadist before. He had been active in the kink community, which favored certain obvious varieties; and the Imperial military gave opportunity for other sorts. But he'd never met anyone else who experienced a kind of sadism quite like Palpatine's. Not a sexual or sensual or even an abstract mental pleasure, not the simple satisfaction of taking out one's anger on an unfortunate body, but a pure spiritual transport of delight.

Zoare's mind wasn't made for much emotion. Had she not been born and raised on this planet, Vader suspected, she'd never have become a lackey of the Sith; she'd have found some easier route to power. In certain times and places, her natural calm could have made her a good Jedi. But the Dark Side was what she'd been raised to, and the Dark Side was what she had chosen, and she had found ways to make its callous cruelties work for her. And the muted joy in her mind now, perhaps the highest joy available to her, felt very much like Palpatine's. It was, to the extent that her mind allowed, a religious joy.

Vader had wanted to hurt Zoare. He had wanted her to feel she had failed. This was neither of those things.

And he was belatedly beginning to understand why not. He had felt it already when he killed the Ruling Council: each violent death fed this place, made it stronger. He had just ordered hundreds, maybe thousands - how many cultists did a gallery like this hold? He wasn't sure. A lot, though.

He felt the rush of power from each death, a sacrifice of others for his own gain. And this was just the kind of power that was most dangerous. The kind that would let the ghost in.

What if he called off the attack? But that would leave him back where he started. Vader couldn't win by playing along, nor by killing everyone in the room, nor by walking away. There must be some trick, some other hidden answer to the puzzle that this place presented, but Vader could not see it.

He could not feel his way through this. He could not trust the Force. The Force was what wanted to consume him here, all-powerful and ravenous.

"I believe my information about you was out of date, Chosen One," said Zoare. Panicked knots were beginning to form at the back of the room, cultists pushing and crushing into each other in their haste to get out, yet so many other stood firm, defiant, praying. "I see now what kind of master you are. You know better than to use words like _save_ or _hope._ Those are the Light Side, aren't they? We are far past them now."

Vader ignored her. "Spare the ones who flee from you," he called out instead, letting his words resonate across the gallery just as hers voice did. "Let them run."

The survivors would all be wiped away by Daala's Death Star soon enough, no matter where they ran. There was no reason for more death in _this_ accursed room, beyond what it took to end the dark ritual that Zoare had begun. He needed to make the cultists go away, but he could at least order a _smaller_ number of deaths in here.

But this did not feel like a solution either, not enough of one. Sacrificial power still burst under Vader skin, more and more. So much. His stomach clenched against it, the light-headed feeling of it, the sense of expansion. He put the power into his mental walls, made them harder and stronger. Made the energy that came to him feed back into defending him from more of itself. But it was still too much, so much power it hurt.

"And if you've given up hope," Zoare mused, "then you understand what makes you the kind of master you are. If you cannot save anyone, then what remains? Destruction." She pronounced the word with relish, as if it tasted good against her sharpened teeth. "That, or a gloomy stasis, but stasis isn't your way, is it? You fight even when there is nothing left to fight for. That is your nature. And that was what I offered you, you know. You can't take back what your master took from you, nor what he took from your friends, or from the galaxy at large. And he is in no position to take more. But you can still fight him." She smiled gently. "You can fight him forever."

Vader could not answer, because fighting the dark power that had risen up within him took up all of his attention. He couldn't even think of another command to give. The room spun. He buckled over and fell painfully to his knees, reeling with it.

He did not want this. He did not want to be made one with the Dark Side. He did not want an Age of Vader. He did not _choose_ it. Surely, for once in his life, Vader's choice should count for something.

Yet he understood the truth of what Zoare was saying. He had seen the remnants of Palpatine's manipulations everywhere. He had seen them in Rax's faction, and so he had fought Rax's faction, and he did _not_ regret that - they were threats to his reign. Obviously he should fight them. But he had also seen those remnants in himself, and he had tried to fight that, too. He had wanted to die, because he could not be the boy he'd been before Palpatine found him. He had seen similar remnants in Tarkin and Daala and Neap, and he had wanted to push all three of them far away forever. He had seen them in M4 when she offered him therapy - even a faithful droid he'd built just for himself was not exempt from this. No one was.

He had seen Palpatine's remnants in this temple, most of all. But trying to fight this temple had been the wrong move. He still didn't know what the right move was, but _this_ one might destroy him.

The room spun more violently with a new burst of power, and Vader slumped into a crouch, on his hands and knees. His stomach heaved. He had to give an order to stop this, but he did not remember how.

His ghost was saying something, but through his mental walls and over the roar of the temple's power, he could not make it out.

He concentrated on keeping his walls up and remaining himself. He had no room for any more thoughts. He no longer knew or cared what else was happening around him, or where Zoare was. He could not have said how much time passed that way. It was merely a sickening blur.

After a while, something hit him.

He straightened, startled, and the room blurrily swam back into view. The worst was over - maybe it had been over for a minute or two. He still felt terrible, ill and dizzy with what had been put into him, but it was not as bad as it could have been. He had not turned into whatever awful thing Zoare had wanted to turn him into; he just felt like garbage, that was all. The Dark Side filled him, with all its attendant hate and rage and the vertigo of more power than even a Chosen One's body was meant to handle, but he was not one with all the evil in the universe. He was himself, barely.

The thing hit him again. He whirled around to face it, and immediately fought down another wave of nausea. It was Neap's knee. She'd kneed him in the side to get his attention. He should kill her for that, but he had just proven what a bad idea it was to kill anyone in here, and he was also very dizzy.

"You listening, Lord Vader?" she said in her gruff voice.

"Yes. Now," he managed to say, though it took effort to speak. "I am now."

His mental walls were up too high to feel her mind. He suspected that _you listening?_ was code for _you okay?_ \- because the latter was an inadvisable thing to say to him here.

He was not okay, but they did not need to discuss it here.

Neap made a careless gesture with her whole arm. She was holding her lightsaber, blades still extended, though no longer spinning. She was gesturing at Xavine Zoare. Zoare had stayed just about where Vader left her - whether by her own choice, or by Neap's own intervention, Vader couldn't tell. He had let go of her himself several minutes ago.

"I was just asking," said Neap, "if you want me to kill this bitch."

"No," Vader croaked. He burned with rage for what Zoare had done to him; he wanted her to die. But killing a High Priestess of the Sith Eternal in her own temple would be a sacrifical cruelty large enough to cap off all the others. Perhaps fatally large. He wouldn't be surprised if those jewels she wore contained power as well, if there were traps set into her very being just in case the new master she initiated was especially annoyed. Or maybe that was always a part of these rites; maybe the High Priestess was _supposed_ to die, just to seal the deal. "Take... take her prisoner. We will execute her later. Away from here."

"Okay," said Neap.

Vader heard the click of a pair of shock cuffs. He was still only vaguely aware of the room around him. He couldn't focus enough to see the expression on Zoare's face, but he suspected that it was as cooly calculating as ever, and would remain that way until the moment of her death. He suspected even the most painful death would not break that calm. But he imagined it, for a vicious moment, anyway.

"We finished with the cultists," Neap said conversationally. "The ones that didn't try to get out are dead. The ones that got out are still running. I'm gonna take the priestess to a transport and give the Grand Admiral an update. Back soon, and the troopers'll keep an eye on you. Don't do anything dumb while I'm out, eh, Lord Vader?"

"As you wish," said Vader vaguely. His whole life had been dumb. This mission had been dumb. He could not possibly do anything useful enough not to be _dumb,_ and inaction did not feel like an option, either.

_And you still haven't dealt with me,_ the ghost whispered.

Vader had accomplished exactly nothing here. He had come here to stop Palpatine from returning and to vanquish the ghost. The former had proved unnecessary; the latter had not been done even a little. He'd gotten so distracted by Zoare's awful ceremony that he'd forgotten the rest. She had her way of merging him with the Dark Side, which he'd immediately believed would let the ghost in - but she hadn't known of a ghost, or at least hadn't spoken of one. And just now, when the Dark Side filled him, it had not, in fact, brought the ghost with it. Maybe because he hadn't let enough of it in, or maybe something stranger was going on. The ghost that haunted him, and the temple's awful concentration of Dark Side, didn't appear to be quite the same thing. Why were they both necessary? Vader's head was spinning very hard. He didn't understand.

_I cannot be killed,_ said the ghost. _I have told you that already. I am all the Sith, my boy, and I am bound to you unbreakably. It is time you accepted your fate._

_No,_ thought Vader, but even with all of his hate behind it, the word felt like a whisper.

He crouched there in front of the throne of the Sith, as Neap walked away, trying to let his breath's rhythm steady him. Waiting to regain strength enough to stand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to Chi-chi-chimaera who wanted to see Rax crash and burn specifically because of that "have you bet your life" line. I was going to just board his ship and take him prisoner like a normal person, but sometimes I like doing little things to make the commenters happy ^_^


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Death Star prototype arrives, and Vader makes one last attempt at destroying his ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay CONTENT WARNING here - Vader is not going to die! All the POV characters are going to survive this fic, promise. (I usually Choose Not To Warn because I like messing around and telling stories about weird consent gray areas that idk how to label, and then sometimes I absentmindedly fuck up the labels anyway and have to go back and fix them, but... like... nobody major is going to die here. It's fine.)
> 
> HOWEVER despite the fact that Vader is not going to die, his suicidal ideation does come back near the end of this chapter in a big way. Be prepared.

After Rax's flagship went down, the two traitor ships that had followed it fought viciously. They'd just seen what happened when a Star Destroyer lost its stabilizers near a black hole, so they defended their stabilizers fervently, even risking damage to other parts of the ship. They sent out an attack of their own, concentrating on just one of Daala's ships - the _Avenger_ , which made up one side of the defensive formation. They moved intelligently, harrying it from two sides at an angle the other Destroyers couldn't easily shoot without breaking formation.

It was dicey, and the _Avenger_ took damage. But fundamentally this was still a battle of five against two. And Death Squadron's TIE pilots, inspired perhaps by Vader's example, were particularly vicious and daring. Soon enough, despite valiant efforts, both enemy ships  had broken apart, spiraling into the accretion disk's flames.

"Sir," said an officer, "the rest of the fleet is hailing. The damaged ship and the one that held back. They surrender."

"Good." Daala let out a short breath, letting her shoulders drop. "Prepare two boarding parties. Standard protocol."

The ships, since they hadn't attacked, would not be destroyed out of hand. Daala's forces would take command of each bridge and lock out the rest of the ship, preventing escape. Their central computers would be slaved to the _Executor_ 's and their crews would be brought to the nearest military base for a proper court-martial. The officers who'd followed Rax of their own volition would be executed for treason; most the lowlier troopers, after some interrogation and a dishonorable discharge, would likely be allowed to live.

"Sir," said another officer, only a moment later. "We're picking up a large craft incoming-"

Only a moment later, the Death Star prototype's skeletal outline emerged from the flames.

It was a beautiful, half-finished thing, looming over the battlefield; its vast, unguarded loops of metal dwarfed even the _Executor._ Some of those enormous struts had been burned black by the voyage, or twisted slightly out of alignment, but for now the structure held.

Daala was so glad to see it.

"Death Star to _Executor,_ " said a familiar voice over the comms. With an odd pang, Daala realized she recognized this voice, a lieutenant named Abree. He'd been friendly with Daala, in a bland sort of way, and he'd shared her wistful longing to emerge from the Maw to use its weapons in a real battle. He'd asked her on a date once, and she'd turned him down, but he'd accepted the anwer gracefully and had therefore not needed to be thrown out of anything.

It wasn't too surprising that he'd been among the volunteers, or that he'd left out the word  _prototype._ Abree could have his fun.

_"Executor_ to Death Star, we read you. What's your status?"

"Systems a little shaky but functional, sir. Weapon should be operational. What are your orders?"

"We're still finishing up here, Death Star. We have forces deployed on the planet's surface. Get in position, but do _not_ open fire until I give the order. I'll send a couple of tugs to help you aim."

"Copy that, sir."

She watched as the Death Star prototype began to slowly and creakingly turn. It did not have a proper targeting system; the superlaser would simply burst from its ports in whatever direction it was pointed. The tugs would help the process a little. But it would still take a sharp eye and a bit of luck to ensure they hit the planet dead-on. They would have to maneuver into as close an orbit as they dared -so close that debris from the destroyed planet would pose additional danger - and arrange themselves carefully. Fortunately, they had plenty of time.

"What's the status of General Veers and Emperor Vader?" she asked the bridge.

"Veers is holding position, sir. The scouts have retrieved the weapon fragments you asked for. They're still gathering as much information as they can, but they can be called back with five minutes' notice. Emperor Vader is still in the temple. We've seen what look like natives of the planet fleeing the building, but no sign of him or his personal troops."

"All right. We'll give him time."

Daala looked down at the planet. This easy victory of hers had only been a side battle. Their true objective lay with Vader - to find the mechanisms for resurrecting Palpatine and to destroy them. The trap that Rax had alluded to, the transformation that might break Vader's loyalty, might still be down there. Or Rax might have made that whole thing up. Natives of Exegol fleeing the temple were a good sign, but she couldn't be sure. Not until she saw Vader and Neap again.

What would she do if the worst happened, if Vader did turn against her? The answer was almost certainly nothing; she didn't think any ship could defeat him. And Death Squadron was loyal to Vader personally. Even if Vader turned his mind to the destruction of the whole Empire, as his master had planned, he might try to suborn his ships to that goal rather than destroy them.

It would come down to a war of Vader versus Tarkin in that scenario, the worst lover's spat in galactic history. And while Daala preferred Tarkin's side of that war, she wasn't sure she'd be able to get to him from here. Nor was she at all sure that Tarkin could win.

Or - her stomach turned - maybe Tarkin wouldn't fight. Maybe he was so codependent with Vader that he'd go along with even this. Anything, any sacrifice, to keep his lover alive.

Briefly, and without intent, Daala imagined giving the order to open fire. _Oops, my hand slipped. Sorry about your co-Emperor, sir._ The mechanisms Vader had wanted to destroy would be destroyed, and Tarkin would no longer be on a bizarre magical quest that distracted him from matters of state. But that was a silly fantasy, impracticable for a huge number of reasons, and obviously treason. She stayed her hand.

She would just have to wait here and hope that Vader came through. And that when he returned he would, for better and for worse, still be Vader.

*

Gradually the spinning in Vader's head died down to a tolerable level, and he staggered to his feet. The amphitheatre was empty now, save for a few cultist bodies in the throes of slow death. The ghost was still very close to him, taunting him.

Vader had to make this stop.

_I keep telling you, my boy-_ said the ghost, but whether or not it was possible to kill this ghost, it would be in the ghost's best interests to insist that it wasn't. Vader ignored it.

"Emperor Vader," said the nearest trooper, "do you need anything?"

"Search this temple," said Vader. "Look for anything that might be of a magical or technological nature and destroy it. Leave nothing unturned."

The troopers scattered, briskly obeying, and Vader performed his own slower search. He walked, lurching occasionally, through the crevices of the main room, the incubators and other machines that lay behind it. He found a few other hallways. There were rooms that could have been dressing and preparation rooms, freshers and meeting rooms, all the standard accoutrements of a temple. Occasional there were further machines, which he cut to pieces with his lightsaber, but this had no satisfying effect.

None of the rooms had anything that looked like it could be the source of power for a ghost. Vader wasn't sure what that would look like anyway, but his feelings increasingly told him there wasn't one here. Maybe the ghost could be killed and maybe it couldn't, but he couldn't do it this way. There was nothing here that would fix it.

Eventually he stumbled back into the throne room, exhausted, and leaned against the steps.

_Let me in,_ the ghost urged. _It is the only way to end this._

_No,_ said Vader.

Gradually the troopers reassembled from their own, equally fruitless searches, and Neap strode back into the room. "Good news, Lord Vader. I got some comms reception out there. General Veers and Grand Admiral Daala are all done their part of this, and the Death Star prototype's here. They're just waiting to fire until we've cleared off the planet. You good to head back to the _Executor?_"

Vader took a long look upward at the throne of the Sith, which still brutally beckoned atop its many steps, its spiked back spreading to dominate the whole stage. He had tried almost everything, and nothing had worked.

The ghost would stay with him. There was no way around it. It would keep on attacking him every night. And one day, Vader knew, his strength would fail. Day after day, nightmare after nightmare - it might take months or years, it might take all his life, but one day the fight would exhaust him too deeply, and one moment of weakness was all it would take. He would give in.

He did not want to imagine what would happen to the galaxy after that. What revenge the ghost of the Sith masters would take on Tarkin, and on anyone else Vader had fleetingly started to care for, using Vader's own body to do it. They might take apart the whole galaxy in just the way they'd promised to Gallius Rax. It was not only Vader who would be destroyed, but everyone and everything that mattered. It was inevitable.

But there was one thing left, one last desperate thing he could try. He knew what it was. He'd felt the pull of it all along, since long before he'd touched down on this world.

In that moment, he made up his mind.

"Go on ahead," Vader said. "Take the troopers with you. Have General Veers recall his forces. Return to the _Executor._ Leave my TIE where it is; I will follow you shortly. When you dock, tell the Grand Admiral to fire immediately; time will be of the essence. But there is one last thing I must do here, and I must do it alone."

Neap raised her eyebrows, and for a moment he was sure she'd argue.

"As you wish, Lord Vader," she said instead. "See you in a bit." And she turned and lumbered out of the room.

It could not be that easy, surely. But maybe it was. Maybe she'd seen nothing in his mind. Or maybe she'd seen his full plan, and the reasons behind it, and she, too, understood the necessity.

The troopers followed Neap out of the room. Vader stood still, in the cavernous room, and waited several minutes after their footsteps died away. He could not move too quickly. Time, as he'd said, would be of the essence. The ghost, once it took control, could not be allowed any time to escape. A minute at most. Vader counted his breaths, focusing, willing himself to guess the correct amount of time. How long would it take for Veers to assemble his troops, for them all to fly up there, for Neap to relay his last order?

Vader waited, dizzily, until his feelings told him it had been long enough.

Then he walked up to the foot of the throne.

He ascended the dark stairs, one at a time, taking it slow. He was still not in the best state physically, and the room still gave an unpredictable spin at times. He did not want to fall. But he reached the top. The room's lightning flashed and threw the structure into contrasting reliefs, one flash after another.

Up close, it was just a chair. Framed in sharp angles, poised at the top of a forbidding flight of steps. But the heart of it was only the same basic shape as other chairs, cut out of stone, uncomfortable but sturdy. It was nothing to fear. Neither was the person in it, one hapless wretch from every generation, who'd only had the misfortune of being born with power, and attracting the wrong attention for it, and being consumed.

Vader sat down in it.

There was no one in that vast gallery to watch him, no one who mattered. Maybe a few of those mortally wounded cultists were still awake enough to look up at him, to hear his voice. Maybe they weren't. But Vader wasn't doing this for them. As far as Vader was concerned, he was alone up here, just him and the ghost, which was poking against his mental walls now in sheer curiosity.

"I," said Vader, hearing his voice echo out across the empty space, "am all the Sith."

Vader was too broken to fix, too far gone down the path the Sith had chosen for him. That was why he had wanted to die in the first place. That was why, as Zoare had observed, he kept lashing out at the brokenness in everything else. But there were advantages to being broken in this particular way. It made it easy to keep the attention of the thing that had broken him. And easy, in the end, to let go.

"I am all the Sith," Vader said, "because I am the only one of you left alive. I am all that remains of your old Empire, your culture, your line. There will be no apprentice after me. No one else who was chosen and shaped for this, and soon even those who carry the memory of how that was done will be gone. You said it yourself - you are bound to me unbreakably. You are my destiny - and I am yours. You cannot have another. Take me, here and now, and you will take no one else ever again."

There was Neap, but she hadn't been trained the way an apprentice was trained. No one had shaped her to be a vessel for a ghost like this; she'd gone striding through this massacre without any ill effects at all. The other Inquisitors and the children would be like that too. They _weren't_ real Sith. For once, that technicality would work in Vader's favor.

_You offer yourself to me,_ said the ghost, tantalized, stricken with need. Vader still could not see it, only feel its shape around his mind, but it was as loathsome as it had always been. He wanted, as badly as he ever had, to push it away.

"Yes," he said.

There would be no going back from this. In every sense of the word, Vader would not survive.

He thought of Tarkin. _I will come back to you,_ Vader had promised. But Vader didn't always keep his promises. Tarkin, of all people, would understand that sometimes in a war one made sacrifices.

_You will let me in?_ said the ghost.

"Yes."

The hunger in its mind was horribly palpable. _Do it._

Vader didn't know if this would hurt or not. Maybe there would be agony. Maybe, for those last few minutes before the Death Star struck, he would be pushed to a corner of his own mind, still perfectly aware of everything around him, forced to watch whatever obscene things the ghost chose to do. Or maybe he would be blotted to oblivion in an instant. If he had counted right - he _hoped_ he had counted right - there would be no time for the ghost to run to his TIE, to attempt to escape. By the time it inhabited him fully, by the time it realized the trick, it would be far too late.

Vader took a last look at the room around him, but it was pitiful, really, just a ruined gallery strewn with bodies. Nothing worth staying to look at.

He braced himself and, in a quick movement like pulling the cloth out from under an object, he let his mental walls down.

And the ghost -

_Yes,_ whispered the ghost back to him, in something more like relief than triumph.

He had expected it to lunge for him, the way it had done in his dreams so often. To pour into him like water or smoke, or like one of his fluid packs, the pressure of it burning his insides. The Dark Side power raised by the massacre was no longer active; Vader had already resisted that. The ghost was what he had invited in, specifically. But it did not push close. It did not violate his body. It did not rush in and overwhelm him.

Instead what happened, over several strange, vertigo-inducing seconds, was that his perspective changed. Vader had been focused on keeping this ghost out of him, and he had perceived it accordingly. The half-seen face, so like Palpatine's, from which it spoke. The amorphous limbs with which it grasped at him.

He had never thought to peer behind those limbs to see where the ghost came from. He had not followed that amorphous body to its ending; it had not occurred to him that there was an ending to look for, or any other parts besides the ones that lashed at him. He had not registered, even in his most anguished questionings, the full shape of it.

It was not a thing from outside him, trying to press its way inside. It did not have to do that, because it was already inside him. Vader could see it now, trailing outward from his pores to coalesce in that half-visible parody of a face. It had come from there, expelled in some paroxysm of defense or denial, and it had been desperately clawing at him, all this time, to be allowed back in.

How could that possibly be? Vader felt more lost than ever. He was so tired. He didn't want to think.

_Can't tell if it's coming from the inside or the outside,_ Neap had said. He hadn't taken that ambiguity to heart as he should have. But she hadn't seen clearly enough to deduce this, either.

Or had she? Was that why she had let this happen?

Vader watched, dizzy and confused, as the ghost sank back quietly into the skin from which it had come. As it dissolved into him and, seemingly, vanished.

He moved a finger experimentally. He didn't feel any different. The ghost was a part of him again, but he could still control his body. That was good; that made all the rest of this that much easier. There would be no need to worry about the ghost taking over, running off, finding his TIE fighter and escaping to wreak havoc on the world. He could keep it right here; he only had to sit still.

Daala would not ask too many questions when Neap returned; she would be eager to use her favorite toy. Surely it could not be much longer. Vader did not want more time, more trauma, more Force mysteries to unravel. He'd had too much already. He wanted an ending.

"I am all the Sith," Vader said, defiant and final, to the huge empty room. "And all of you will die with me."

He sat back in his throne.

He closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more will be explained in chapter 27! i'm writing it as fast as i can! :D
> 
> comments are love <3


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neap drags Vader back to the _Executor,_ and Daala gets the chance to fire a superweapon of her very own.

A burst of electricity hit Vader out of nowhere, startling him out of his reverie. He snapped his eyes open, feeling his body clench and his muscles stop cooperating. He slumped down, sliding half-out of his throne. Hands guided him - whose hands? When had people come into the room? This _hurt_ \- down those forbidding steps and onto a float pallet.

He was too disoriented to identify what was happening. It must be the lightning that flickered constantly in this world's atmosphere. No, it must be Force lightning. Except-

It wasn't Force lightning. Vader knew what Force lightning felt like, an energy shaped out of pure crackling hate. This was just an electric current, having its usual catastrophic effects on Vader's life support suit, and it was coming from-

Neap stepped into view, towering over the pallet, tossing some object idly up and down in one meaty hand. The horns jutting out from her chin, at this angle, obscured most of the rest of her face. She seemed more exasperated than angry. "Really, Lord Vader? Even if I wasn't a mind-reader. You expected _anyone_ to fall for a 'go, I'll be right beyond you'?"

The object in her hand was a Clone Wars-era droid popper, a grenade-like weapon built to short out mechanical systems with an electromagnetic pulse. People had tried these before - enemy soldiers too clever for their own good, who reasoned that Vader was at least half droid. It never worked; he could bat them away before they discharged, as easily as deflecting a blaster bolt. But on the throne, eyes closed, waiting for death, Vader had not wanted to defend himself. He had chosen to be destroyed, and so the survival instincts preventing destruction had simply not appeared.

Instead, the weapon had found its mark, and his life support systems were now doing what they typically did when electrocuted: short out, shut down, reboot from a failsafe circuit. A blow like this would not kill him. But for the next half-minute he would not be able to breathe. His heart beat only in wild arrhythmic pulses; his limbs were dead and useless.

He thrashed, weakly.

"I just left long enough to get the poppers and the pallet," Neap explained. She seemed to sense some motion in Vader's mind, some precursor to violence, and she held her hand out defensively. "Before you try to kill me, hear me out. I told the Grand Admiral to hold her fire until we're back on board."

"You-" said Vader; he had not yet regained much control of his facial muscles, nor could he easily expel any air from his lungs, and it took effort to speak. "Should- not have- done-"

"Yeah, I should. You hired me to help with this mission, remember? Rax's faction's beaten and the ghost's gone. No sense wasting personnel." The team of troopers walked briskly, carrying his pallet back through the corridors of the temple. Neap easily kept up. "Emperor Tarkin was afraid this might happen. He warned me to bring this stuff for an emergency. He gave something to Grand Admiral Daala, too. Some Intelligence flimsi. Said it might help."

They stepped onto the lift platform, and it began its rise back to the surface. There was a stutter and a feeling like coughing, and then a much-needed flow of air as Vader's respirator haltingly came back online. He had stopped trying to fight; it was a waste of energy. He needed Neap and Daala's cooperation in order to die in the way he'd intended to, and they weren't going to give him that. He could find a different method later.

Or maybe he wouldn't even have to. Neap believed that the ghost was gone. Vader was not convinced, but it had certainly not harmed him the way he'd expected it to, and it had at least stopped threatening him for the moment. He had let it in, and he had remained in control of himself. If it stayed that way, if it didn't leap back into his dreams at the first opportunity...

Then there was no very urgent reason for Vader to destroy himself. No one else's safety depended on it. Vader was not sure he wanted to live, but he could stand to take his time and think this through.

"She spoke to me about the flimsi," Vader growled. "It is only the name of another Jedi to hunt. I do not care."

Neap tilted her head. "Did you, uh, _look_ at the flimsi, Lord Vader? I didn't get to, but I saw Emperor Tarkin's mind when he mentioned it to me. I don't know the whole deal, but all my instincts tell me this is something big. And even if I'm wrong, there's no reason not to wait and see for yourself."

The lift platform emerged at the lip of the chasm, under the temple's heavy roof, and the troopers carried him out toward where their transports had landed. There were not many ships left, only a single troop transport and a _Lambda_ -class shuttle.

"My TIE-" Vader protested.

"I told Veers to take it up with the transports. Mine too. They're hanging by mag-clamps off the bottom of some troop carrier. Probably back in orbit by now. No offense, my lord, but you are currently high as fuck on Dark Side fumes, plus electrocuted, plus suicidal, and I don't trust you to drive a vehicle."

He slumped back, resigned. Control of his limbs was returning, bit by shocky bit; but everything was painfully heavy, and he was so tired. Nothing seemed worth the effort. Neap and the troopers loaded him onto the shuttle, and then the troopers mostly headed back to their own carrier, leaving Neap and Vader alone in the shuttle with a single, nervous pilot at the front controls. Everyone else was already in the air.

Vader watched silently out the window, still flat on his back, as the shuttle took off. The ground dropped away into a mess of smog as they followed the _Executor_ 's navigational beacon. Neap stayed at his side, scowling down at him silently.

"Is it really gone?" he asked at last. "The ghost?"

"Far as I can tell, yeah. Merged right back into you and melted away. Damndest thing."

"Did you _know?_ " he demanded. That the ghost was a part of him. That it wasn't really Palpatine or even Darth Bane. In some sense it wasn't only his imagination - it _must_ have existed, or she wouldn't have seen it too. But in its origins, in its type of existence, it had been only a foul emanation from his own broken mind.

Maybe she'd known, and chosen not to say anything, because it was more fun to watch Vader succumb to his madness than to tell him the truth. Neap was vicious enough for that. But maybe not. She'd saved him, after all.

"Nah," said Neap. "Not really. I had a lot of theories, and this was one. But I didn't know it was true until you did. If you want to know, most of the other options were worse."

There was something complicated going on further down in Neap's mind. Vader could feel that her words were true. She hadn't betrayed him. She'd gone on this mission because she wanted to, and she'd seen all the mission objectives through. Even the deepest, unspoken one: _try and save Lord Vader from himself._

But that didn't mean she'd forgiven him.

"Why did you risk yourself to bring me back?" Vader asked, even more softly. "You hate me; I feel that. You could have let me die."

Neap shrugged, and something in her face closed up. She turned from him and gazed out the window, though there was nothing to look at, just smog. She spoke with a careful casual tone. "You know, a lot of us Inquisitors begged for death. When we were broken. A real Jedi would rather die than turn the way we did, no contest. But Lord Sidious and his Grand Inquisitor never gave us that option, and neither did you. So, nah. You're gonna live with what you are, like the rest of us."

She turned and walked to the front of the shuttle, leaving him there.

Vader morosely listened to his breath and flexed his hands.

_Are you in there?_ he thought inwardly, experimentally, in the direction where the ghost had gone.

He received no real answer, no sense of a presence or a threat. No sense that anything was trying to speak back. But he felt something else. A new awareness, a sharper awareness, of the shape his mind had been in all along.

_I am what is passed down from master to apprentice,_ the ghost had said. It had not lied - not then, at least. It had simply not meant what Vader thought it meant. Something was passed down through all the Sith in every generation, but it was not a single consciousness, not a literal possessing ghost. It was subtler than that. Darth Bane had shaped his apprentice for a specific purpose, through force and mystic influence and lies, through whatever else could ensure that his vision would live on in her long after she killed him. She had done the same, years later, to another. And on it went. Plagueis had shaped Palpatine. Palpatine had shaped Vader. Ever since Vader was really quite young, he had been bent to this purpose. He had been made into a monster, caked with blood and rage and grief so deep it would never all wash back out, and that monster's design could be traced back through the lineage of every Sith before him. He was all the Sith. He would never not be.

Vader had known that truth already, but he had fought it. He had not wanted to hold his supposedly-freed self and that truth in the same body, so instead he had tried to die. He had wanted to force it all out of him, as decisively as he'd separated Palpatine's soul from his body, once and for all. And deep down, because Vader was so naturally powerful in the Force, that desire had consequences. Without quite knowing he was doing it, Vader had tried to tear the whole Sith legacy out of himself; and of course, once torn that way, all it had wanted was to force its way back in.

Vader carefully moved the fingers of his right hand. There were still a few residual shocks here and there, and it sparked as it moved. He was in control of himself, and that was what mattered. No one possessed him but his own self. He moved because he wished to.

_I cannot be defeated,_ the ghost had said, and it had not lied. Vader had been given this legacy; it had been molded into him so deeply that nothing could wash it away anymore. He could spend six lifetimes atoning; he could unlearn every lie his master ever told; he might never harm a living creature again. It would not save him from what had already been done. He would still be the person that the past twenty or thirty years had happened to, who had been groomed until he willingly murdered everyone who'd once mattered, who had rampaged as the galaxy's worst monster for so long. Nothing could change that. Vader could go back to the Light Side, even - what an absurd idea - and he would still be all the Sith.

But he _could_ do those things, or any other set of things, if he wanted to. If he chose them for their own sake. Vader moved because he wished to, in spite of all that had gone before. It was up to him.

He had to hold both sides of this truth, to accept the paradox of it, before he understood. He was all the Sith. And he was free.

_You will never be free,_ the ghost had said. It had not lied. It was just that there was more than one kind of freedom.

Vader would never be free.

But he _was._

*

"Okay, we're back," said Neap's voice in Admiral Daala's comm link. Daala already knew they were; her officers had narrated the process of guiding Vader's shuttle back into the hangar. Scanning of the planet had been completed some minutes ago; Veers's troops had already returned. The surviving ships from Rax's fleet had been boarded and made ready to leave when the _Executor_ did. The Death Star prototype was in position and had aimed itself as carefully as it could.

"Emperor Vader is with you?" Daala confirmed. Her little reverie from earlier, about firing on Vader, still hung guiltily in her mind. Imagining him dead had seemed like a harmless self-indulgence, but then Neap had commed up from the planet's surface and told her what happened, and now Daala felt much worse about it. She hadn't _actually_ wanted to kill Emperor Vader, even then. Surely he knew.

"Yessir. In a hell of a sulk, but he's here."

"Good work." Daala turned to the rest of the bridge crew. "Confirm: all ground forces have returned to the _Executor?_ "

"Confirmed, sir."

"All ships prepared to evacuate the Maw Cluster on command?"

"Yes, sir."

" _Executor_ to Death Star. Are you ready to open fire?"

There was genuine relish in Abree's voice. "Yes, _sir._ "

Daala turned to the window; she wanted to _see_ this. Inhaling in anticipation, she took a last look at the gray sphere of Exegol before her, floating grimly in the space between the Maw Cluster's flames.

"Fire," she said.

She held her breath as the Death Star prototype went through the process of commencing primary ignition. Daala knew this half-made battle station's schematics by heart, the switches and the buttons on which the skeleton crew would put their hands, the hypermatter-kyber reactors that would roar to life when activated. She counted the time in her head. The superlaser fired at exactly the correct moment: its green rays pulsing out from the tributary beam shafts and joining into one.

The bolt of green light burst through space, bright against the orange miasma behind it, and it hit home.

It was not as quick or clean an explosion as it would have been, if this were the full-scale, completed version of the battle station. But it was enough. Exegol's crust gave a fiery shudder, so bright as to be visible through the smog, a shock wave quickly flowing from one side of the planet to the other. And then - like Rax's flagship before it - the whole planet began to break apart, into chunks and bits of asteroid that floated out towards the ravenous singularities that surrounded them. And the singularities-

Daala, who had lived in the Maw Cluster for years, saw it before anyone else did. It should not have been physically possible - a planet was so small, in gravitational terms, compared to a singularity - but she'd known that the consequences of firing a superlaser in here were not well-understood.

The broken parts of Exegol were being drawn towards the singularities - and the singularities, inch by inch, were also moving in toward _it._

Daala spun on her heel. "Evacuate. All ships. Now."

The _Executor_ obeyed immediately, and the rest of Death Squadron followed. They sped out of the Maw Cluster back the way they'd come. The black holes moved slowly, but they were moving, their orbits shifting slightly out of alignment, their accretion disks beginning to bend and spark against each other. It was going to take non-negligible time to get out of here, and by the end of that time, Daala was not at all sure that the safe paths would still be in the same places as before.

The Empire's scientists had never really understood how it was possible for black holes to assemble in a cluster like the Maw. Somehow, perhaps via the Dark Side, Exegol had formed a linchpin holding that cluster together.

Daala could not take the shot back. She could only watch the flames and listen to the officers' frantic patter, the alarming bleeps and klaxons as the flaring edges of those accretion disks leaned in too close for comfort. Nobody moved to abandon ship; everyone had seen how useless that was for Rax's faction. If the _Executor_ went down here, _now,_ they were all going down with it. The fact of their victory would be cold comfort to Tarkin, who would still be waiting for them, bereft of immediate news, long after they were destroyed.

*

They made it out, though, eventually. It took a long panicked flight through a tortuous route. But the ships of Death Squadron popped out of the Maw Cluster and into the dim, dusty space around Kessel, all still more or less in working order.

When Daala tried to recall the flight, later, she had difficulty doing so. It was all a frightened, flaming blur. More than once the _Executor_ had banked alarmingly, and the klaxons had grown louder, and there had been an even more alarming bout of swearing and course corrections from the pilots. The shifting gravity wells around them seemed to move the ship like a great clenched hand at times, stabilizers or no stabilizers, shoving them this way and that. She had no idea how they'd escaped without some black hole gobbling them up.

But they were out now. They'd lost an auxiliary freighter and one of the two captured Star Destroyers. They'd all been burned and cracked in places, particularly the _Avenger,_ which had already taken such a beating in the battle itself. They'd lost the Death Star and its tugs, of course. Daala thought of Abree, but any pang of regret she might have felt for his death was indiscernible amid the general fear and shock. They'd all known the prototype Death Star's crew might not make it. Maybe that was just how Death Stars worked. Maybe, by some obscure law of the universe, a weapon so powerful could not be used without somehow immolating itself.

This was victory. Daala had done more than what she'd come for; she'd eliminated both Vader's ghost and Rax's faction, and her own side had taken minimal casualties, most of them volunteers. She also had the materials Veers' troops had liberated from those shipyards, the half-built objects that looked tantalizingly like small superlasers themselves. Daala was going to make sure that those objects were studied.

The Maw Cluster shifted before her, a many-mouthed pool of darkness and flame. It flashed and shook where accretion disks came into contact with each other, jostling like hungry fiery beasts the size of star systems. Plasma flares larger than planets spiraled up from their edges only to fall vertiginously back in. The whole cluster had begun to crumple into a new shape, and would no doubt continue to chew on itself for a long time before it was through. The Maw Installation was certainly gone in those flames; good riddance. They still had the Sun Crusher project, out at the Malestrom's edge.

As two of the black holes tangled close to each other, a blindingly bright light flashed from them, a gamma ray burst puncturing the Akkadese dust cloud like tissue. Daala shielded her eyes. It wasn't pointed at them, or at Kessel, which was why they were all still alive one-half of a second later. She was surprised how much she enjoyed the sight.

The Maw was gone, and Exegol was gone, and in their place was an obscene inferno none could approach, and she wasn't sorry.

_There is something dark in you, Grand Admiral,_ Vader had said to her. _Something burning._ He was not the first to say so, though she hadn't thought of it in a while. Daala's instructors at the Academy, before Tarkin, had told her that this was her weakness. Recklessness and overkill. Tarkin had loved her ferocity, but he'd taught her to control herself, to think with discipline, to channel that inner flame towards the right ends.

But this was _hers,_ not Tarkin's. Not Vader's, either. She had made this plan herself, and she had led the forces carrying it out. Everything opposing her had fallen so easily, and the power she held had reshaped space itself.

And it was blazing. And it was beautiful.

She let herself smile.

The mood was ruined a moment later, when she heard a familiar heavy footstep behind her, and a familiar mechanical breath.

"Emperor Vader," she said, after a pause, when he did not immediately speak. She did not turn to look at him. "Welcome back."

"I would have come sooner," said Vader. "But I was otherwise occupied. The fleet was in distress. And I had excess power to burn."

Daala considered that statement uneasily. She'd heard stories about Vader's piloting, sometimes when he wasn't even at the controls. The _Executor_ 's occasional uncontrolled movements had terrified its pilots, but several of them had also pulled it just clear of some lick of cosmic flame. Maybe they hadn't only been gravitational turbulence. Maybe there was another reason, besides quick thinking and sheer luck, why so much of Death Squadron had escaped intact.

But if that was the case, if Vader had saved them all, she would have expected a man like him to gloat more loudly. By Vader's standards, this was positively modest.

"Do not presume to think you have destroyed the Dark Side," said Vader, which startled her; she hadn't presumed anything like that. "You have only freed it from the form that the people of Exegol pulled it into. There will not be less evil in the world. The wrongs that were done to the galaxy before today will remain. But the future's darkness will be shaped like itself, and not like any one man."

She turned to him, blinking slightly in confusion. "I had no such cosmic presumptions, my lord. I was thinking of the mission objectives. But I think we did do a good job."

Vader was silent, apart from his respirator, for another breath.

"I... apologize," he said at last. "For how badly I frightened you. Before."

Daala narrowed her eyes. It was extremely unlike Vader to apologize. That made two uncharacteristic actions in rapid succession - was that a sign of his distress, after what had happened on the planet?

Or was he possessed, after all? She shivered. Neap had told her that the ghost was gone. Neap could see such things. She shouldn't doubt. More likely, given what had happened, this was simply Vader at his most exhausted.

But it was not a good idea for anyone to apologize to Daala this way - for _frightening_ her, as if she was some lost child. It only made her look weak and emotional in front of the crew. And if Vader truly wanted to apologize for the misdeeds of the last few days, having frightened her was barely the beginning of it.

"You frighten everyone, I'm sure," she replied coolly. "It is a part of your job description. Did you want anything, my lord?"

"You have mentioned that you were entrusted with information. The name and location of a Force-sensitive Rebel. For after this mission. Since this mission is now over, I would like the information."

"Of course, my lord. Shall I find a conference room?" She didn't relish the thought of being alone with Vader again, but it would be better than giving emotionally loaded information to a volatile, possibly-still-suicidal Sith lord in front of the whole bridge.

"Do so."

Neap turned from where she'd been standing nearby. "Could I tag along, Lord Vader? Not like Force-sensitive Rebels are in my job description."

"You may," said Vader.

Daala's shoulders dropped slightly in relief. She wouldn't have to be alone with him. She didn't want to repeat the confrontation from earlier today - and she had _no_ idea what she was supposed to do about the thing that had happened in the temple. Daala had no training in how to deal with a suicidal Emperor. He wouldn't appreciate being handled with kid gloves, but was she just supposed to ignore it? To pretend she didn't know that he'd just tried to make her kill him?

She had no suitable words of comfort, even if he'd wanted any. Vader, with or without Tarkin, was an awful dark knot that she couldn't untangle.

There was a conference room not far from the _Executor_ 's bridge, a long gray table set up for many more than three people, but none of them bothered having a seat. Daala fished in her pocket for the flimsi, still neatly folded. "I want to make it clear, my lord, that I don't myself know the significance of what's written here. I've looked at it, but as fa as I can tell, it's only a standard intelligence profile. Tarkin believed that your reaction would be highly emotional, which is why he wanted to wait and discuss it with you himself. But also why he gave it to me and Neap, in case of an emergency like the, ah, recent one. He believed there was something in here which might give you hope for the future, or at least a task to attend-"

"Your thoughts on the matter do not interest me," said Vader, extending his hand, and she realized she'd been nervously babbling. "Give it here."

Reluctantly, Daala handed the flimsi over, and Vader unfolded it in front of his masked face.

Daala knew what the flimsi said. It gave Luke Skywalker's name, along with some biographical data: his age, his upbringing in obscurity on Tatooine, his association with the fallen Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, his facility with piloting and with mechanical matters. It specified that he was the pilot who'd destroyed the Death Star, and that he'd also been involved in the rescue of Princess Leia; he had no other known accomplishments of note. There was a blurry headshot, and there was a note of his suspected location: Imperial spies had a lead suggesting he was headed to Rebel training exercises on a world called Vrogas Vas.

Vader looked at the flimsi, and for five seconds, everything was still.

"Skywalker," Vader repeated to himself, in a tone whose softness did not make it even a little bit less terrifying. It sounded as though the name itself was a wound, as if he had been shot with it.

There was a rumbling sound that Daala, for one nervous moment, could not identify. Not until she began to also feel the vibration through her feet. The whole room was shaking. Cracks began to appear in the gray conference table before them.

Neap took an alarmed step toward him. "Hey. Lord Vader. Hey-"

"He hid this from me," Vader growled, turning towards her. There was that wound in his tone still, an abject betrayal. " _This._ "

"My lord," said Daala, fighting to keep her voice steady. "That is not what Emperor Tarkin did. As I've explained, he only delayed telling you by a day; he wanted to discuss this matter with you when-"

Vader turned on his heel toward the door, giving no sign he'd heard her at all. "Ready my shuttle. I leave for Vrogas Vas immediately."

"My _lord!_ " Daala protested. A cold sweat had broken out under her uniform. "You can't just _leave._ You promised Emperor Tarkin-"

Vader rounded on her. "I will return myself to you and your master soon enough. And when I return, we will have _words._ "

He swept out of the room. Daala moved to give chase, but Neap held out a quelling hand in front of her, a hand as big as half Daala's ribcage.

"Let him go," she said, as the door swished shut behind Vader's caped back. And the expression on her tusked face, in her one good eye, was unaccountably sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> daala running home to tarkin like "sir! sir i got to win a battle and blow up a planet! and then the entire maw cluster also blew up and i might kinda have wrecked your secret research installation and also set off a gamma ray burster by accident and idk what will happen to kessel. but in my defense it was AWESOME"
> 
> and tarkin is like "...yes. yes it was. good work"


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader sets out to find his son, while Daala and Tarkin worry over what this will mean for the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Not to worry, my dear, I have this all under control," says Wilhuff goddamn Tarkin, who has not had a single thing under control in this entire fic

"He's his _what?!_ " Daala exploded, some time later, in the Imperial Suite's parlor.

Tarkin was standing by that big picture window, clad in his full Imperial regalia, bare hands clasped behind his back. It was late at night, and he'd stayed up waiting for her arrival. Vader had left the _Executor_ at Oba Diah, and Daala, in his stead, had redirected Death Squadron back to Coruscant. She'd sent Tarkin the briefest of comms, barely managing to maintain a professional demeanor in her distress, updating him on the situation. He'd congratulated her formally on her victory, and had agreed that, yes, she'd best come back to the palace to debrief in person.

Daala had her preferred ways of celebrating military achievements and working off the leftover adrenaline, most of which involved Tarkin's participation, but she did not feel ready for them now. She had solved the problem of Exegol, but not the problem of Vader, and her worry over him had gnawed at her all the way back here.

Tarkin did not look happy, either. The signs of fatigue were plain in his narrow face. He stood straight, but he was only halfway looking at her.

"His son," Tarkin answered shortly. "Long lost and presumed dead. _Certainly_ not presumed to be a Rebel. I didn't know either until I saw the report."

"But- that's-" Daala spluttered. As if Vader and Tarkin's relationship hadn't been sufficiently full of drama already. "How is that possible?"

"Vader used to be a Jedi, as you know." Tarkin began to pace, absorbed in the weight of this problem. "I knew him then, though not nearly so well as I do now. He wasn't always trapped in a suit. The Jedi were meant to be celibate, but of course Vader never liked to be constrained by the rules, and he had a lover. A secret wife, actually. She was pregnant with his child when the Jedi Order fell."

Daala's brow furrowed as she assimilated all this. It had been hard to picture Vader and Tarkin together; it was even harder to picture Vader's past self as a normal person, having normal relationships. "And then he... lost track of her, sir?"

"Worse than that. I don't know the details, but amid the other chaos there was some altercation between them. Vader lost his temper and lashed out. They were then separated somehow, and he was led to believe he had killed both the mother and the child. Of course, you can guess who told him that. Vader believed him, but he never understood quite how he'd done it."

Daala sat down heavily on the nearest couch. _He hid this from me,_ Vader had said. Neap had clarified, after he left, that he had mostly not been talking about Tarkin. Tarkin had hidden Luke's existence for a day. Palpatine had hidden it for nineteen years, and so had others. That was what Neap had been able to glean from the feel of Vader's mind, but she didn't know much else. It was a small relief, but the rest of the problem remained.

"I don't know about the mother, but this is almost certainly the child." Tarkin crossed his arms, coming to a morose halt near the window. "You may think of Vader as a remorseless killer; that's the image he projects. But guilt and grief for these particular deaths always haunted him. It caused no end of complication in establishing a relationship of our own. I don't like that he ran off to Vrogas Vas so quickly, but I'm not wholly surprised. Vader needs closure."

"But, sir-" Daala stopped spluttering and took a deep breath. She needed to control herself; she needed to properly articulate her concerns. "Sir. Let me explain how this looks to me. Emperor Vader is more powerful than any of us. He has Imperial authority as well as incredible strength in the Force. And he is seriously mentally unstable. You understand _that,_ don't you?"

Tarkin frowned. "He is dealing with mental illness and significant trauma, yes. And he is quite powerful. I don't see how it's relevant."

Daala wanted to cry with frustration. She held out her fingers, counting off factual points. "He has significant trauma because of Emperor Palpatine. Which means he's now questioning everything Palpatine taught him, even when it wasn't a lie. You didn't see-" She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She hadn't told Tarkin yet about the harrowing encounter in Vader's quarters _._ "He and I had a conversation, sir. On the way to Exegol. He accused you of manipulating me, and Palpatine of manipulating you, and all of us of being - enchanted. Full of sinister motives that weren't really our own. Emperor Vader has no inclination to trust anyone Palpatine was ever involved with even slightly. And now you have sent him, sir, to find his long-lost son, who was never in contact with Palpatine. A son who, in Vader vulnerable mental state, will seem to have all the answers. A son who already almost killed you, sir. A son. Who is. A Rebel. Against. The _Empire._ "

Daala had been placed in the middle of this without her knowledge or consent. She felt used. Vader had wanted to die down on Exegol, and she could have _let_ him. She had felt guilty for even thinking of that, at the time - but if she'd known what was really on that flimsi, what it really meant, she would have known that letting Vader live to see it would be even worse.

Tarkin sighed and uncrossed his arms, moving to settle in on the couch next to her. "You're right that there's a risk, my dear, but you're vastly overestimating its size. You must remember that in all likelihood this Luke knows even less about Vader than Vader knows about him. He lacks the background knowledge required to pull off any real manipulation. In truth, I don't know what will happen when they meet. Perhaps they'll hate each other. Perhaps Luke won't even be there, and Vader will slink back to us with his tail between his legs. The most likely outcome is that they meet and it's hostile and emotional and awkward, and then they both return to their respective sides to think things through. Even if Vader wanted to join the Rebels as you're implying, they'd never let him. They have no reason to trust him at all."

"You'd better hope so, sir. Because you've bet the whole galaxy on it."

Tarkin scrubbed at his temples, making a face. He looked just as frustrated as she was. "I only found out about this yesterday. What would you have had me do?"

"You should never have let him find out," Daala insisted. "You should have had this Luke assassinated and destroyed any evidence that he ever lived. His very existence threatens the Empire, sir. You've done worse over less."

Tarkin stood back up abruptly, pacing away. His jaw had tightened into a sudden cold anger. " _That's_ your brilliant tactical plan? And how do you propose we should have killed this Luke when the Force is so strong with him that even Vader failed? Believe me, Natasi, I thought of it. But this is not some boy who can be dispatched with ordinary assassins. This is a _Jedi_ , even untrained. You weren't old enough to see the Jedi in the Clone Wars. They were poor tacticians, but if you'd seen half the things they could individually do when threatened-"

"The clones managed it," Daala said, equally coldly. "Sir."

"The clones managed it, yes, after spending their entire lives gaining the Jedi's trust under the direction of a Sith Lord who specialized in such things.  And even if we killed the boy, for the sake of argument, what then? Vader  _reads minds_ . How long do you think it would be before you or I inadvertently let something slip? Do you have  _any idea_ what he would do to us then?"

Daala clenched her fists miserably. She had no counterargument - none that Tarkin would accept. She could have said, _You should have let him die when he wanted to._ She could have said, _You should never have made him Emperor in the first place._ But Tarkin would be even less receptive to these arguments than to the current one. And none of it mattered anyway, because it had all already been done. Even if she was right, there was nothing left but to navigate whatever consequences occurred.

Tarkin knew that. She knew it, too. It was one of the basic principles of tactics: fight the battle you are in, not the one that came before.

 _What's done is done._ Tarkin knew it, and he would treat her objections accordingly. She knew how Tarkin worked. He would let her have her say. He would let her shout herself hoarse, if she wanted to, and he would respond with cold deflections until she had worn herself out. He would wait until she had slumped down silently on that couch, devoid of further ability to fight, and he'd give it a minute or two more after that.

Then he would settle in more gently beside her, not presumptuous enough to touch her yet. And he'd say something like: _You did do well on that mission, regardless. I was proud._

He would know what she needed. He would take his time. He would coax her back into his arms. She'd let it happen, because her body craved the things Tarkin could do. Daala still loved this man, even now. Even knowing that the galaxy, the whole Empire, might be doomed now because of him.

He'd shove her up against a wall. He'd pull her hair. He'd growl in her ear what a good, fierce, clever little Grand Admiral she'd been.

And then eventually morning would come. They'd rise to their respective work tasks. Tarkin would be busied with dozens of affairs of state. And Daala, in between her other duties, would begin to prepare. She had Assistant Director Ronan and the Sun Crusher, after all, lurking out there near the Akkadese Maelstrom. They weren't technically hers anymore, but they were directly below her in the chain of command, and presumably her first job would be to find some new place for them. They had four Star Destroyers with them, including the _Gorgon._ She had them, and she had those tantalizing new weapons from Exegol, half-finished and ready for close study. That was enough of a power base to start with. She could build more.

Daala wasn't going to betray anybody, not if she could help it. Bu, if the worst did occurr, she would need those resources so as to survive on her own.

"Vader is volatile, but he's loyal by nature," said Tarkin, some of the immediate anger leaving him. "He won't turn against us unless he can convince himself that we turned against him first. Given that and the other facts, our best strategy is to keep his trust."

Daala wanted to pull out her hair by the roots. Did Tarkin really think he'd _done_ that? If Vader wanted to punish Tarkin for imagined sins, he had half a dozen excuses lined up already. He could say it was because Tarkin had hid Luke's existence for a day, because Tarkin had taken another lover against Vader's wishes, because they were all under Palpatine's posthumous influence anyway, too far gone to be saved.

He'd said it to Tarkin already, right in front of her, the first night they met. _Your position as Emperor depends on my good will._

But Tarkin had already turned away to face the nighttime cityscape. He put his hand on the window. His fingertips traced a path down the transparisteel, so light and gentle that he might have been stroking the smallest of animals.

"Besides," he said, so softly that Daala wasn't sure if she'd been meant to hear, "I want him alive."

*

Several hours before this took place, Vader had taxied his shuttle out of the _Executor_ 's hangar and punched in calculations for a route from Oba Diah to Vrogas Vas. He was alone in the vessel. No TIE fighter for him, not this time - not even a TIE escort, though the commander in charge of the hangar had tried to insist. On this journey, Vader needed space for a passenger, and he did not need other, trigger-happy pilots along for the ride.

He had haphazardly thrown various supplies into the shuttle that he felt he might need, including an extra supply of hyperfuel; Oba Diah, Vrogas Vas, and Mustafar were not particularly close to each other, and while the shuttle had a hyperdrive, it was better equipped for short jaunts. No matter. Time was of the essence, and Vader knew how to use what was at hand.

The burst of rage, when he'd first read Luke's name, was already fading. Tarkin had tried to finesse the situation in ways Vader did not like. But that was a small crime compared to Palpatine, who had told Vader that his wife and child were dead at his hand. Compared to Obi-Wan, who had hidden Vader's son from him and let him grieve alone, for all these nineteen years.

And even those killing rages were smaller than the other thing he felt. The opposite of grief. A kind of longing that had been gone for so long, he'd forgotten its name.

Vader had a son.

His son was alive.

It seemed there was another part to his revelation, after all. Vader could not take back the thousand deaths and griefs he had already dealt. But out of all those deaths, out of the very worst of them, there was one - just one - that had not been a death after all.

And if Luke was alive, then Vader wanted to be alive, too. He couldn't have a son if he wasn't alive. He needed to find him and see for himself who the boy had become, what might have been made of him.

There was the small matter of Luke being a Rebel, and having killed a number of Imperial troops which had almost included Tarkin, and of Vader having already almost killed him in return. But Vader would find his way through that; he would improvise as he so often did. His feelings would not guide him wrong this time, because every fiber of Vader's being cried out for an ending to this which did not involve any more blood or pain. Vader could make his own choices now. He could choose not to harm his son.

Vader would go to the world where his son was, and he would meet his son, and he would bring him home. And then they would all figure out together what was going to happen next. Him and this Luke, and Tarkin and Daala, Piett and Neap, everyone in this ridiculous Empire that Vader had assembled around him. All of them were twisted out of the shapes they should have had. But all of them were free. And if Vader, when he returned, could make them understand - if he could find the words to explain what he had learned - then maybe they could all figure out some better shape to become.

His navicomputer chimed; the route was ready. Vader pulled back the throttle so as to make the jump. His shuttle shot forward in the usual way of ships, into the darkness streaked with light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *topples absolutely all the way over*
> 
> THE END! Thank you for reading!
> 
> Clearly there is a lot more to tell in this AU and a lot of implied need for a sequel because LUUUUKE. I... am going to be my usual cagey self about that, folks. If you were here for "Playing With Fire" then you all know I like to dither around and go "idk if I will write anymore or not, I love these characters but I need my ~*freedom" and then post the start of a whole new fic 2 weeks later anyway. So, take this as [insert dithering here]
> 
> That said, I think I am actually going to take a bit of a pause before continuing. This was a particularly heavy fic for me emotionally. Don't get me wrong, I loved it and have no regrets, I went into it knowing it would be this way for a very specific reason, and I think it wound up doing what I needed it to do. But I'm also feeling the need for a bit of a palate cleanser. Might fuck around, write something happy for a change, or in a whole different fandom, or some random weird porn since I do sort of miss that about the last series, or maybe just flop and read other people's fics for a while. We'll see.
> 
> In the meantime! If you want this story over again, except sung to you over heavy guitars by various angsty ladies with good sets of lungs, then here's my Strike Me Down; I Am Unarmed [playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4FxzuBE04HxFfHsyW6IUBU) And don't forget I am also a blanket permissions author, so you can feel free to write or draw or [other creative verb] your own ideas of what happens next in this AU. Just give credit if you do.
> 
> Comments are love, and your kudos/comments have kept me going <3 Take care.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [New Toys](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25997746) by [soulshrapnel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel)




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